H2 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



presence in Eigg in their " Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides." 

 WM. EAGLE CLARKE. 



The Badger in Kirkcudbrightshire. In Mr. Robert Service's 

 "Mammalia of Sol way," in a previous volume of the "Annals" 

 (1896, p. 204), one of the last Badgers (Meles taxus) in the Sohvay 

 district is said to have been killed near Dalbeattie in 1870. It 

 may be useful to record that, a few years before that date, two 

 Badgers escaped from a ship lying at anchor in Gibb's Hole. Both 

 of them were trapped by keepers about the same date as Mr. 

 Service gives. The one was on Munches estate and the other at 

 the Scaur. So that it is very probable that the Badger Mr. Service 

 mentions was one of these, and not a native. NORMAN B. KINNEAR, 

 Edinburgh. 



The Harvest Mouse in Renfrewshire. There is preserved in 

 the Free Museum, Paisley, the nest of a Harvest Mouse (Mus 

 mimitus, Pallas). This nest was found by me in the parish of 

 Kilbarchan in the beginning of the winter of 1895. It was by the 

 side of a hawthorn hedge, about which there had grown many rank 

 specimens of the reed canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea). The 

 stalks of this grass were still standing, but withered, and the nest was 

 fastened to some two of the stalks and a small twig of hawthorn. 

 The nest stood a little over two feet from the ground ; was com- 

 posed almost entirely of the blades of Phalaris arundinacea ; was 

 round in shape ; and, as it now stands in the museum, it measures 

 3^ in. by 3f in., the latter being its height. To me it seems difficult 

 to give an accurate description as to how the blades are fastened 

 together. There is no cement used, but on the outer walls of the 

 nest the flat blades of grass are spirally twisted round, so that when 

 the nest is tenanted by a family of young it would seem as if the 

 whole fabric expanded and its walls became tighter and closer knit 

 together. On looking at the nest there seems to be no entrance 

 to it, and it is probably entered from below. The blades of the 

 grass composing the interior of the nest are finely cut and torn. 

 By the side of the hedge where the nest was found one of the fields 

 had been cropped with cereals. I have also seen the nest of the 

 Harvest Mouse in Abbey Parish, Renfrewshire, built in the same 

 manner as the above described, but finer in appearance from finer 

 blades of grass having been used. I have seen as many as three of 

 them within a few feet of each other, but in these cases only raised 

 from 5 to 8 inches above the ground. They were also at the root 

 of a hawthorn hedge by the side of a cornfield, and were observed in 

 the winter months when the hedges were leafless. J. M. B. TAYLOR, 

 Curator, Free Museum, Paisley. 



The White-beaked Dolphin in the Moray Firth in January. 



On the 1 2th of last January a female Lagenorhynchus albirostris got 



