ON THE AVIFAUNA OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES 85 



the isles (since the publication of our " Fauna of the Outer 

 Hebrides"), but beyond keeping in touch with old friends and 

 localities, I did not do much fresh surveying. The last of 

 these short visits was in company with my friend H. E. 

 Dresser in 1 896, when he and I made the usual round in 

 the s.s. Dunara Castle, Even then opportunities were not 

 awanting for verification in many respects. 



We had been assisted in a very appreciable way by 

 much correspondence, and by all the lighthouse returns 

 for some nine years. After the issue of our volume on 

 the Outer Hebrides, other areas demanding more of our 

 attention, Buckley and I devoted more time to these ; but 

 of late I have again been in correspondence with old friends 

 in the Outer Isles, and I propose to say a few words 

 regarding the changes that have taken place there since 

 the issue of the second volume of our series, viz. in 1888. 



Now, when Feilden and I first worked certain islands 

 we could hear of none of the following species breeding 

 within the group, or otherwise possessed only vague and 

 unreliable information regarding them. Thus, we could 

 never hear of any of the Lesser Terns breeding anywhere in 

 the Outer Hebrides. Red-necked Phalaropes were under- 

 going a transition stage as regards their numbers, which, 

 however, had always wavered between plenty and scarcity. 

 They were in those days also much more restricted, probably 

 in numbers, and certainly in haunts. Previous to our visit in 

 1870, H. G. Ehves in 1869 found many more nesting at one 

 locality than we did only a year afterwards at the same place. 



At that time also we could hear nothing about the 

 nesting of the Pochard at any of the places where we resided 

 or worked around. Nor did we recognise the Scaup-duck 

 as breeding anywhere within the area. In the second part 

 of this paper I intend to endeavour to bring up to date as 

 far as I can any changes that have come to my knowledge 

 in the species found breeding in the islands ; and I will bring 

 up to date all records of the rarer species already chronicled 

 in various places, and especially such as are placed on a 

 good footing in the pages of our " Annals of Scottish 

 Natural History," where from time to time these have been 

 inserted, and others which have been found authentic, and 



