250 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



Littorella lacustris, which is not unlike Eriocaulon as I 

 observed it in Skye last year. M'Culloch was not a botanist, 

 and I think might quite well have mistaken the plant. I 

 dragged this loch, and all the others on the island which 

 were near roads, as well as some others ; but I saw nothing 

 of Eriocaulon. There are about forty lochs in Coll, and I 

 did not examine them all ; but I carefully worked those 

 which a non-botanical visitor would probably come across. It 

 is extremely difficult to prove a record to be wrong when 

 once it has been made ; but I cannot help thinking that this 

 one is due to the mistake above mentioned. In this case the 

 plant is not one which would become exterminated in a few 

 years. I also examined a number of the lochs in the neigh- 

 bouring island of Tiree, but saw nothing of Eriocaulon. 



ZOOLOGICAL NOTES. 



Pine Marten in Argyleshire. Your readers will be interested 

 to hear of the occurrence during August of the Pine Marten (Mustela 

 martes). As I give the report on the information of so reliable an 

 observer as Canon Tristram, who was my guest at Kilmory, I think 

 no doubt can be thrown on it. It was in chase of a rabbit, but 

 being disturbed by a fox-terrier, it ran up a very old silver fir. A 

 few months ago one was trapped on the Poltalloch estate in our 

 neighbourhood : it was said to be a barren female. With this excep- 

 tion, and a few occurrences in Morvern or Ardnamurchan, it has 

 not, I believe, been reported in Argyleshire for many years. JOHN 

 W. P. CAMPBELL ORDE, Kilmory. 



Badger in Lanarkshire. Mr. Robert M. Morton informs me 

 that he saw recently, in the hands of Mr. Drummond Pringle, 

 Chapel, Braidwood, who was preserving it, a Badger (Meles taxus) 

 which had been shot by the farmer in Gilbank, Carluke parish, in 

 July. JOHN PATERSON, Glasgow. 



Bottle-nosed Whale in Renfrewshire. According to a report 

 in the " Greenock Telegraph" of 2Qth July, a Bottle-nosed Whale 

 (Hyperoodon restrains) was captured on the previous day at Messrs. 

 Russell and Company's, Kingston Yard, Port-Glasgow. It had 

 floundered inside a boom protecting one of the launching-ways. 

 According to a measurement taken at the time it was captured, it 

 was 14 ft. 6 in. long. I had an opportunity of seeing it while it 

 remained on exhibition in Greenock. It was a male, and from its 

 size no doubt a young one. JOHN PATERSON, Glasgow. 



