234 The Scottish Naturalist. 



late Mr. James Thomson, of the Kelvingrove Museum. Glas- 

 gow, who was still working for me when overtaken by his last 

 illness. I am also more than obliged to Mr. J. A. Harvie 

 Brown for furnishing me with the names of correspondents 

 and also for thoroughly working up the Stirlingshire district. 



Caithness. — The only trace of the Jay we have been able 

 to find in this county is a notice in Mr. R. J. Shearers paper a 

 on the Birds of Caithness, in which he states that the Jay is 

 rare, " probably introduced." 



Sutherland. — Mr. John Crawford kindly informs me that, 

 as far as he knows, the Jay has never been met with in Suther- 

 landshire. And my friend, Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown, who has 

 paid much attention to the birds nesting in this county, omits 

 the species in his recently published paper on the subject, b 



Ross-shire, with which is included Cromarty.— In Ross- 

 shire I am also unable to trace the species, although I have 

 corresponded with several of the authorities on the natural 

 history of the county. In fact, I consider that any Jays which 

 may have been met with in the north of Scotland are only 

 stragglers driven there by storms or by some other accidental 

 cause. 



Nairn and Elgin. — The Jay does not occur in either of 

 those counties. Mr. M'Leay of Inverness, who has for the 

 last 20 years done most of the bird stuffing in the neighbour- 

 hood, has never seen a Jay from Morayshire. Neither is the 

 species mentioned by Mr. St. John in any of his interesting 

 works on the natural history of the neighbourhood. Nor does 

 the Rev. G. Gordon include the Jay in his " Fauna of Moray, "c 



Banff. — Writing in 1856, Mr. Thomas Edward^ says he 

 has several times observed the Jay in various parts of the 

 county. It must, however, have become much more rare of 

 late years, as it is now seldom if ever seen. The last I have 

 heard of was a pair seen in the neighbourhood of Banff in the 

 summer of 1872-3, which fact was duly recorded in a local 

 newspaper. 



a Proceedings of the Royal Physical .Society of Edinburgh, vol ii. p. 33S. 

 b "Birds found breeding in Sutherlandshire. " By J. A. Harvie Brown. 

 Proceedings of the Nat. His. Society of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 69. 

 c Zoologist, I844, page 502. 

 dfList of the Birds of Banffshire,, Zoologist, 1856, page 5273. 



