266 The Scottish Naturalist. 



Story of a Pigeon.— A gentleman in Alyth, who owns pigeons, made 

 the following observation in regard to the instinct of a pigeon of the com- 

 mon blue kind, such as are seen in dovecots all over the country ; but the 

 pigeon of which the observation is now to be recorded lived in a wooden 

 dovecot fixed on the wall of a dwelling house. Two pigeons had built 

 their nest in the top story of the dovecot, and had hatched their young r 

 which came out of the egg about the middle of March, 1876. On the 1 6th 

 day of March a very severe storm of snow and snowdrift set in at dusk. It 

 must be noticed that the door of the dovecot looked to the north-west from 

 whence the storm was coming, so that the snow blew right into the portal 

 where the young pigeons were lying, only a few days old. The storm was 

 very severe, so much so that it was thought to be the hardest that had 

 happened for many years ; and the young brood would have no doubt 

 perished, but for the happy expedient that the father of the young pigeons 

 adopted. He stood in the doorway with his tail spread out to the storm, 

 and his wings in a fluttering position, evidently with the intention of stop- 

 ping the draught, so as to shelter his naked offspring ; and there he stood 

 for hours with the snow thick upon his back and tail, breaking the intensity 

 of the cold. But for this the young must have died. And herein we have 

 a very direct evidence of the truth of the saying that God tempers the wind 

 to the shorn lamb ; only with this addition, that the story gave evidence of 

 the high power of instinct, especially when called into exercise by parental 

 care. — William Japp, Alyth. 



Note on Certain Species of Eupithecia.— (1) Eup. oxydata Tr. This 

 name M. Guenee (the well-known French lepidopterologist) applies to a 

 specimen taken at Moncreiffe, and of which I have also a specimen, which 

 I captured in Kirkcudbrightshire. M. Guenee remarks, " Said to be, but 

 wrongly I think, a simple variety of subfidvata. " The specimen in question 

 was submitted to the late Mr. Doubleday, who declared that it was a species 

 unknown to him. Dr. Staudinger, in his " Catalog," places oxydata as an 

 aberration of subfidvata ; and Doubleday, in the supplement (1873) to ms 

 "List," also gives oxydata Tr. as a variety of subfidvata, and equivalent to 

 cogitata Steph. In the "Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society of 

 Edinburgh" (April, 1857), Mr. R. F. Logan states that he has had the 

 -larvae of subfidvata and cognata at the same time, and has no hesitation in 

 considering them to be the same species. They fed on the common yarrow. 

 Oxydata differs from subfulvata by the much more numerous transverse 

 greyish white lines. The reddish fulvous patch so conspicuous in subful- 

 vata is reduced to a small reddish patch on the disc, which is also traversed 

 by the transverse lines. (2) E?ipit/iccia sp. Along with the above-men- 

 tioned specimen I sent another to M. Guenee, with the provisional name 

 septentrionata. He says that it does not agree with any in his collection. 

 It is therefore presumably an undescribed species, but of course it is im- 

 possible to found a species, in this difficult genus, upon a single individual; 

 and I therefore in the meantime would merely direct attention to it, in the 

 hope of more specimens turning up. As I have not yet got the specimen 

 back from France, I must wait for another opportunity to point out its 

 peculiarities. It was taken in Rannoch last summer. — F. Buchanan 

 White. 



