ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 253 



Greenland Falcon in Skye. Mr. Mackay received a specimen 

 of the Greenland Falcon (Falco candicans), apparently a male, from 

 Captain Macdonald of Waternish, on 26th May 1896. T. E. 

 BUCKLEY, Inverness. 



Nesting- of the Stock Dove on the Pentland Hills, etc. The 

 Stock Dove (Columba ainas) appears now to have fairly established 

 itself on the Pentland Hills in this county. The first intimation I 

 had of its presence there was from Mr. Eagle Clarke, who observed 

 one about the rocks at Nether Habbie's Howe, in the very heart of 

 the Pentlands, on ist May 1892 ; and there can be little doubt one 

 or more pairs have annually returned to breed in this spot, for the 

 bird has been seen there on several subsequent occasions, including 

 1 5th April of the present year, when Mr. R. Godfrey twice saw a 

 Stock Dove leave her nesting- hole in these same rocks. I also 

 ascertained that in the summer of 1893 a pair reared two broods in 

 a rabbit-burrow on Torduff Hill on the north side of the range. To 

 this locality they have likewise annually returned this year, on loth 

 March, I put one out of a nesting-hole there, and roused a group of 

 seven from a rock in Bonaly Glen. On nth May I observed 

 another in a wooded ravine close to Glencorse reservoir. 



The first record of the Stock Dove as a bird of the Lothians 

 was made by me in 1886 ("Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc.," vol. ix. p. 186) 

 on the strength of several specimens obtained that year at Gosford 

 and Newbattle. Subsequent observation and inquiry have convinced 

 me that the species has been present in the district for a longer period 

 than I then supposed. In the spring of 1889, several examples from 

 near Gorebridge came under my notice, and in the same year I saw 

 numbers in Dalkeith Park, where Mr. Chouler, the head keeper, who 

 knew them as " Rocks," and in whose hands I have examined both 

 birds and eggs, assured me they had been present ever since he 

 came to the place twenty-two years ago (namely in 1874), nesting in 

 holes in old oaks and in the sandstone rocks overhanging the Esk. 

 Along the northern branch of the Esk they now occupy sites almost 

 as far up as Carlops. Mr. Godfrey, to whom I am much indebted for 

 many interesting field-notes on this and a number of other birds, 

 first found it nesting on the Penicuik estate on the banks of the 

 Harken Burn in May 1891. Passing over to the Balerno district 

 on the north side of the Pentlands, a former keeper at Malleny 

 described to me, nine or ten years ago, a pigeon he had shot there 

 which could be nothing else than a Stock Dove ; and a year or two 

 later one was seen on the same ground by myself. During the last 

 four or five years I have once or twice in the autumn observed 

 single birds at Mortonhall and elsewhere in the immediate vicinity 

 of Edinburgh. Mr. Bruce Campbell has recorded it from Dalmeny 

 Park, West Lothian, and he tells me it has nested there this year. 



As regards East Lothian, where it is now known to breed from 



