NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 151 



very long time." Wrens did not reappear in Berwickshire till 10th 

 November, 1879, when three were seen in as many localities. 

 A similar report reaches me from the Lightkeeper at The Little 

 Ross Lighthouse on the Sol way Firth. Complaining of unusual 

 scarcity of birds, he writes — " I attribute the scarcity of birds this 

 season to the severity of last winter, which I know has occasioned 

 them to die in thousands. The Redbreast and Wren used to be 

 very common here in winter, bivc I saw none of them this year, 

 except one Redbreast, which was on the 20th September." The 

 scarcity of birds on migration in 1879 is, however, partly due also 

 to a prevalence of N.W. winds driving the body of the migrants 

 further south, as is proved, I think, by the unusually large body 

 of autumn migrants upon the English east coast. [Vide Cordeaux, 

 "Our Notes from North Lincolnshire in autumn of 1879," Zool., 

 Jan., 1880.] 



WILLOW WARBLER. 



Phylloscopus trochilus [Lin.) 



Willow Warblers were present on Loch Awe side, around Tay- 

 creggan, by the 28th April. I had not observed any previously 

 either in Stirlingshire or at Callander. On the 28th they appeared 

 in Berwickshire, and continued. On the same day I found them 

 on Loch Awe side, and in a few days after they were abundant in 

 all sheltered places, but especially in larch plantations. I found 

 them in the garden of Newton House, North Uist, in June, and 

 was informed that they appeared there for the first time three 

 years before [say 1876]. 



The result of my observations during the summer of 1879, so 

 far as I have been able to judge, tells me that various summer 

 migrants to our shores are more than usually abundant this 

 summer, though they were late of arrival as a rule. The deterrent 

 influence of the late cold spring made them late of arrival, and to 

 some extent no doubt shortened their journey. We find proof of 

 this also in the large numbers of Song Thrushes breeding in the 

 south of England and the corresponding scarcity in Scotland, or 

 indeed almost total absence jn some districts. Mr. Hardy, writing 

 to me in September, 1879, says — "The most numerous summer 

 birds were the Willow Wren and the Whitethroat. " In one place 

 in Berwickshire he reports them in May as " sometimes as numer- 

 ous as bees, but little song amongst them." 



