NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 121 



a young one, wliicli unfortunately escaped among the reeds." Sir 

 W. Jardine has kindly informed me that " The old bird certainly 

 had a young one with it, but whether a young Scaup or not, it 

 would be difficult to say." Thus, then, the matter still remains 

 uncertain, as no authentic nest or eggs have since been obtained. 

 I have, however, obtained strong presumptive evidence of its 

 having bred. In June, 1868, I shot an adult male Scaup, which 

 had been frequenting the same small loch for some days ; and from 

 its unwiUingness to leave the locaUty, though repeatedl}'' disturbed 

 and fired at, I am fully persuaded that the female was sitting on 

 her eggs at no great distance. With my friend, Mr W. Jesse, I 

 also, in June, 1867, obtained a laying of duck's eggs, and 

 though failing to identify them, they closely resembled eggs of 

 this species from Lapland. I shall not be surprised to hear of the 

 young or eggs of the Scaup being found in either one or other of 

 four different localities. A correspondent from one of these, 

 described a duck very minutely — which could hardly have belonged 

 to any other species — as having bred in the county, to his certain 

 knowledge, in 1865. 



Ohs. No. 2. Golden Eye, Clangula glaucion (Linnaeus). — Sir W. 

 Milner includes the Golden Eye in his " List " as observed on two 

 occasions. First — " On one of the numerous lochs between Thurso 

 and Tongue, we fell in with a male Golden Eye (May 1 7th), and 

 from what we observed in Sutherland afterwards, we had no doubt 

 that the female was upon her eggs." And again : " Near Loch 

 Maddy (or Maldie), on the 21st May, on another small loch, we 

 flushed a female Golden Eye." Mr St. John also observed this 

 species in summer, on Loch Laoghal. Mr A. G More says (" Ibis," 

 1865, p. 447) : " Mr W. Dunbar informs me that the Golden Eye 

 has once been known to breed in Sutherland, a] nest with young 

 birds having been found by a shepherd in the hollow of an old 

 larch-tree on Loch Assynt, and he suggests that one of the birds 

 must have been disabled and unable to migrate." At present 

 there are no larch-trees on the banks of Loch Assynt, nor have I 

 been able to ascertain from any of the older inhabitants that the 

 larch ever grew there. But if the nest was found in the trunk of 

 a fir or birch, it may possibly have been that of a Goosander. 



Ohs. No. 3. Black Scoter, OEdemia nigra (Linnaeus), according 

 to Mr Dunbar, breeds regularly in Caithness ; and Mr J. Watson 

 says (" Zoologist," 2nd series, p. 1867), that it did so in 1868. 



