ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 251 



not allow of our approach when we first came on it ; later in the 

 day, however, on our return, the bird was again in the same locality, 

 and on this occasion it fell to my companion's gun. It had never 

 cried during the period we observed it. The bird was a male, 

 and its stomach was crammed with beetles and lame. ROBERT 

 GODFREY, Edinburgh. 



Red-footed Falcon in Aberdeenshire. A fine male specimen 

 of the Red- footed Falcon (Falco vespertinus) was killed at Crimin- 

 mogate on the 7th of May last. This is the third occurrence of the 

 species in Scotland : the first having been killed at Hill of Fiddes, 

 Aberdeenshire, 2Qth May 1866; the second at Hauxley, near the 

 Borders, in October 1868. In the last edition of Yarrell's "British 

 Birds" (vol. i. p. 70), it is stated that "two have been killed near 

 Aberdeen." This is a mistake ; there was but one, as above noted. 

 It may be well, however, to say that when the Aberdeenshire one 

 for 1866 was recorded in the local papers, and there appeared 

 the following day a letter in which it was affirmed that one had 

 been killed at Rothiemay, Banffshire, and three in Aberdeenshire, 

 the last two having been killed and their nest and eggs taken, 

 subsequent inquiry proved all these statements to be incorrect. 

 The weight of the specimen now recorded was 6^ ounces, expanse 

 of wings 27^ inches, length from beak to end of tail 12 inches, 

 wings when closed same length as tail. Upper parts dark brown ; 

 primaries light mealy gray, with black shafts ; tail black, with a 

 greenish sheen when held to the light ; abdomen and leg feathers 

 cinnamon brown. The stomach was filled with shrew mice. GEO. 

 SIM, Aberdeen. 



[There are two recorded Scottish specimens in the Edinburgh 

 Museum: one killed at Kinghorn on the 2oth September iSSo ; 

 and the second near Jedburgh on the 2ist June 1888. EDS.] 



Merlin nesting 1 in Tree in Midlothian. The extreme partiality 

 of the Merlin (Falco cesalon} for a haunt it has formerly occupied 

 a fact well known to all field ornithologists was strikingly illustrated 

 in the case of a nest found this season in Midlothian. In 1896 a 

 pair of Merlins chose an old crow's nest in an open wood-clump 

 at the base of the Pentlands as the receptacle for their eggs ; and 

 on 3oth April, when I first examined the nest, they had cleared out 

 all the old pine-needles that accumulate in vacant nests, but had 

 not as yet laid. On gih May I again visited the wood and put the 

 Merlin off the nest, and on climbing found two eggs. On 15111 

 May the female was shot off her eggs, and the keeper forwarded a 

 note to me stating the fact. The male lingered about the nest two 

 days longer, and successfully eluded the repeated attacks made by 

 the keeper on his life ; he then forsook the locality, and I climbed 

 on the 1 8th and took the four eggs. This year in spite of the 

 treatment accorded him last year the male returned with another 



