NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 149 



the 14th. They seem to have arrived very generally over the 

 country about this time. They were later also of departing in the 

 autumn ; those later of departing being probably birds deterred 

 from going far north by the cold spring and summer, and crowded 

 down upon our latitudes. Swifts were last seen in Berwickshire 

 by Mr. Hardy on the 12th September.* 



KINGFISHER. 

 Alcedo ispida, Lin. 

 Very unusual numbers are rejjorted in autumn, 1878, through 

 the central southern counties of Scotland, and the bird-stuffers 

 were receiving them in great numbers. Later in the autumn 

 this large migratory flight arrived in the counties of Dumfries and 

 Kirkcudbright, as recorded by Mr. Robert Service [Dumfries 

 Courier, 25th March, 1879], on the banks of the Nith, Urr, and 

 Dee. They left for the south about the middle of December. 

 The first I again observed at their breeding haunts was on 

 the 4th April at Dunipace. I cannot remember that they ever 

 so completely deserted the central counties of Scotland before, 

 though in most seasons a partial migration takes place, all 

 blanks being usually filled by an immigration of birds from 

 further north. On our coast line they frequent open tidal ditches, 

 and a local migration takes place from inland to the coast. This 

 winter, however, they were quite absent from both resorts. 

 Recorded also from Midlothian as a rarity [Zool, May, 1879, 

 p. 220]. Professor Duns, in his paper above referred to, gives a 

 list of nine preserved by one bird-stuffer in Edinburgh alone, 

 between December 7th, 1878, and January 11th, 1879. "Some 

 of the birds," he tells us, " were in extremely low condition." Mr. 

 Robert Gray records that " about twenty were obtained in the 

 neighbourhood of Edinburgh in the course of six w T eeks during the 

 present winter " [Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, 1878-79, p. 499]. 



HOOPOE. 



Upupa' epops, Lin. 

 A male Hoopoe was shot by the under-keeper to Mr. Baird of 

 Elie, at Elie House, Fifeskire, on the 8th May, as recorded by Mr. 

 J. J. Dalgleish in Zoologist for June, 1879, p. 268. 



• The late stay of Swifts in various parts of England has been freely 

 commented upon in our periodicals. [Vide Zoologist, October. 1S79, p. 423.] 



