332 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



and literature. He specially directed his attention to everything 

 pertaining to the life and writings of his celebrated townsman, 

 Alexander Wilson, the poet and ornithologist; and he took an 

 active part in promoting the monument to the memory of that 

 distingiuished naturalist which was recently inaugurated in Paisley, 

 besides editing an edition of his poems and letters. From failing 

 health, Mr Hutcheson was incapacitated from attending the 

 meetings of the Society for the last two years, and his illness 

 terminated fatally, at Govan, on the 2d of this month. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — Notes on the Food of the Long-tailed Duck, Harelda glacialis. 

 By Mr David Robertson, Jun. 



The food of birds and fishes often affords much information 



regarding their habits, and many interesting specimens of natural 



history have been obtained from their stomachs. The well-known 



Banff naturalist, Mr Thomas Edwards, and many others, have 



procured the greater number of their rarest specimens from such 



sources. Water birds have many opportunities on their feeding 



grounds of picking up shells not procurable by any ordinary 



means, — the Long-tailed Duck more especially, as it feeds almost 



exclusively on shell-fish. We have an interesting example of the 



fact that these ducks are good collectors, in the shells which are 



now before us, which were taken from the crop of one shot in 



Skye. It is well known that the Long-tailed Duck is purely a 



sea-bird, gathering its food wholly beyond tide-mark, and never 



seen on shore except at the breeding time. It finds most of 



its food by diving to a depth of from 20 to 80 feet, and remains 



under the water for a considerable time, picking up the small 



shell fish attached to the algae and stones on the sea-bottom. I 



have in my collection several small boxes containing shells taken 



from the crops of various ducks, and all carefully labelled. When 



my father was looking over the shells taken from the duck got in 



Skye, he found two which seemed new to him. He submitted 



them for examination to Dr Jeffreys, who identified them as 



belonging to a Mediterranean species, CycJope neritea, not known 



to Britain. What makes the fact more interesting is, that 



owing to one being a young one, he was able to determine them 



as both belonging to the same species, although formerly 



considered as two distinct species. As the shells had not 



