ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 255 



Turtle Dove in the Outer Hebrides. I have to report the 

 occurrence in North Uist, Outer Hebrides, of the Turtle Dove 

 (Turtur communis). A young bird was shot by my gamekeeper late 

 in August last, and has been mounted for my collection. J. W. P. 

 CAMPBELL ORDE, Kilmory. 



Turtle Dove in West Ross-shire. On the 6th of June last I 

 observed a Turtle Dove (Turtur communis) fly out of one of the 

 plantations, and across the road, at Braemore, Loch Broom. This 

 is the first time I have seen this bird during the twenty years that I 

 have been resident here. J. A. FOWLER, Inverbroom. 



The Tufted Duck in South Ayrshire. As the volume of 

 the " Annals " which closes with the present number contains so 

 much regarding the distribution of the Tufted Duck (Fuligula 

 cristatd) in Scotland, it may be convenient to place on record now 

 the result of a visit I paid in June to a group of South Ayrshire 

 lochs which are not mentioned in Mr. Harvie-Brown's paper. I 

 visited Lochriecawr, Lochs Enoch, Macaterick, Gower, Finlas, and 

 Derclach Loch, and remained for four days at the south end of 

 Loch Doon, but though constantly on the lookout for this species 

 it never came under observation. This confirms what I stated 

 in a previous communication, that there are still many localities 

 in the south-west to colonise. I proceeded from Loch Doon to 

 the Ayrshire coast, and visited Mr. Charles Berry, who has a 

 thoroughly representative collection of the birds of the Lendalfoot 

 district, but he has no Tufted Duck, and he told me he could not 

 be sure that he had ever seen it. Mr. Berry's vocation takes him 

 much on the waters, and as he has been all his life an enthusiastic 

 collector, his statement is valuable. JOHN PATERSON, Glasgow. 



Probable nesting of the Red-breasted Merganser in Bute- 

 shire and Ayrshire. The distribution of the Red-breasted Mer- 

 ganser (Mergus serrator) in the nesting season in Scotland is 

 generally stated in recent works on British Birds without reference 

 to the Firth of Clyde, but that it breeds there I have little doubt. 

 Mr. John Robertson saw a female with two quite young birds in 

 Bute on 2oth July of this year. These young birds, he is satisfied, 

 must have been bred near the spot where he saw them. In a list 

 of birds observed in Bute in July of this year which I have received 

 from my friend Mr. John Lang, Greenock, I find one pair 

 Mergansers entered. A recent experience of my own on the Ayr- 

 shire coast helps to confirm the view Mr. Robertson takes of its 

 occurrence as a nesting species in Bute. On the 8th of August, in 

 Mr. H. B. Watt's company, I found a female Merganser attended 

 by a young bird, which was quite unable to fly, on the shore south 

 of Fairlie. I followed the birds on the thickly matted zostera for a 

 considerable distance, and could have captured the young bird had 

 I been anxious to do so. I may mention that on the 23rd of May 



