ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 117 



spaces on either side of it are twice as broad and of a totally 

 different shape from those of the common species. The feet are 

 dull yellow and the webs black. The nail on the bill is of the 

 same colour as the rest of that organ, and the inner secondaries 

 sickle-shaped. 



There are over a score records for this species for our Islands 

 since 1813, and of these four have occurred in Orkney and one 

 in Shetland, viz. in November 1832, May 1868, December 1869, 

 March 1884, February 1899, and a young drake was seen by Mr. 

 J. G. Millais in the spring of 1883 near the churchyard rocks off the 

 western promontory of Pomona, about which there was no doubt 

 whatever as he was close enough to the bird to see the curious 

 shape of the head so characteristic of the drake of this species. 

 The bird shot on zist February was a single one and very wild. 

 H. W. ROBINSON, Lansdowne House, Lancaster. 



Surf Scoter in Orkney. During the week between i4th and 

 2 ist December last an adult male of the Surf Scoter (CEdemia per- 

 spicillata) was observed inside Stromness Harbour, Orkney, but 

 escaped being shot, although many envious eyes were cast upon it. 

 Young birds of this species are of commoner occurrence in Orkney 

 than most people think, and hardly a winter passes without one or 

 more of these young birds being seen among the Velvet Scoters 

 when they first arrive from their northern nesting haunts, but are 

 almost if not quite unapproachable. The adult bird, however, is 

 very much rarer, and I think only half a dozen are on record as 

 having been actually shot in Orkney. H. W. ROBINSON, Lansdowne 

 House, Lancaster. 



Goosanders in Forth. Mr. W. M'Dougall, of Glasgow, shooting 

 on Carron-side, near Kirk o' Muir, shot an adult male Goosander. 

 So far as I am aware, this is the first record of the occurrence of 

 the bird upon the running river above Denny. But as long ago 

 as 1870, in the month of March, I have myself seen many large 

 parties of Goosanders, on the open and exposed surface of Loch 

 Coultre, brilliant in salmon-pink flushed breasts and sides. I have 

 seen there as many as seventy in one company. W. M'Dougall's 

 specimen was shot towards the end of February 1906. I will not 

 be surprised to learn of their nesting soon in the well-adapted 

 "braes" and rocky glen of the Upper or Middle Carron. I base 

 my observation upon previous experience of accumulated facts in 

 the progress of the dispersal of the species from N.W. congestion to 

 S.E. overflows. J. A. HARVIE-BROWN. 



Woodcocks in Shetland in 1905-6. The bag of Woodcocks 

 to one gun in the north Mr. R. C. Haldane's Lochend, Ollaberry, 

 was eighty-one for season 1905-6, of these the later killed February 

 1906 were believed to be "Returning Migrants going north," or, 



