The Scottish Naturalist. 37 



coming to their nest. They apjieared to feed the young chiefly early in the 

 morning, or very late in the evening, just before dark. I had several oppor- 

 tunities of identifying them satisfactorily, as they sat on the rocks a couple 

 of hundred yards off, and I might frequently have shot them. When the 

 young were fully fledged, I took one, and kept him in a cage for a week, but 

 he eventually escaped ; and I have since seen him, or some of his i-elations, 

 more than once flying about the hill. The nest was built in a hole in a cleft 

 of the rocks, and the entrance to it entirely concealed by overhanging heather. 

 In the last number of the ' Ibis,' p. 382, there is a note of three specimens 

 having been shot in Scotland early in the summer. There is no doubt these 

 birds would have bred if they had been left alone. — A, B. Brooke, Cardney, 

 Dunkeld. 



REVIEWS. 



Transactions of the Natural History Society of Aberdeen, 1878. 

 8vo, pp. 98. — The Natural History Society of Aberdeen (the third of that 

 name) was instituted in 1863 ; but though its meetings have been regular, and 

 its life apparently altogether healthy, this is the first volume of Transactions 

 that it has published. Not, however, the first of its publications, as from 

 time to time several excellent papers, which had been read at the meetings, 

 were printed and circulated. 



The present volume, after a brief sketch of the work of the existing Society 

 and its predecessors, commences with a paper on the " Progress of Zoology 

 in Aberdeen and its Neighbourhood," from the pen of Professor J. W. H. 

 Trail. Zoology, it seems, has been much less a field-study in Aberdeenshire 

 than Botany. Consequently it has been thought desirable to devote the 

 greater part of the first volume of Transactions to that department of Natural 

 History, with the view especially of showing what is the present state of 

 knowledge x-egarding the local fauna, and of pointing out what remains to be 

 done in the future. 



The four following papers ai'e also by Dr Trail, and include "Introductory 

 remarks on the Entomology of 'Dee,'" and lists of the Insects, of the 

 Spiders, and of the Galls and their Makers that have been found in the 

 district. 



The zoological province or district "Dee," as defined in this Magazine, is 

 adopted by Dr Trail, and divided into seven sub-districts, which he describes 

 and illustrates by a map. Then follows a pretty extensive list of the Lepi- 

 doptera (to the end of the Tortrices), with their sub-district destribution as 

 far as known. This list contains the names of 455 species. Of some of the 

 other orders of Insects, short lists are given ; but, as in most parts of the 

 country, comparatively little attention has yet been paid in Dee to the 

 "neglected orders." 



The list of the Araneid?e or Spiders is more fully worked out, and is rather 

 extensive. All the species were collected by Dr Trail himself who gives 

 some excellent hints on the best methods of collecting spide.s. 



