326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



will possibly enable us to arrive at some conclusions as to the 

 causes of scarcity or abundance, peculiarities of migration, and 

 other points of interest in the life-history of species from year to 

 year. Once more, allow me to solicit the support and assistance 

 of our members, as well as of Scottish ornithologists generally ; 

 and let me, also, again urge upon our members and others the 

 desirability of keeping regular journals, either zoological or 

 botanical, in connection with meteorological phenomena. I have 

 here to acknowledge intelligent and obliging assistance, especially 

 for my Third Report — now progressing (March, 1881) — from our 

 worthy Assistant-Secretary, Mr. J. M. Campbell, of Kelvingrove 

 Museum. 



P.S. Vide supra, p. 316. — At the last moment I received a copy 

 of Col. Drummond Hay's interesting paper, read to the Dundee 

 Naturalists' Society on 16th February, 1881.* At page 16, 

 speaking of the decrease in the numbers of Geese in the Tay 

 estuary, he says, " A few occupy the same haunts, but in very 

 greatly reduced numbers, and these are now confined almost 

 entirely to the Grey and Pink-footed kinds — the latter being the 

 more common of the two — the Bean and White-fronted being now • 

 scarcely or ever seen." 



On the Firth of Forth our commonest species is the Pink-footed, 

 and the Grey Lag is very rare. 



* ( ( i 



; The Grallatores and Natatores of the Estuary of the Tay : the great 

 Decrease in their Numbers of late years : the Causes, with Suggestions for 

 its Mitigation." Dundee: John Leng & Co., Bank Street. 1881. 



