NOTES ON SOME OE THE BIRDS OF BUTE 29 



Common Gulls. I understand that they have bred in this 

 locality for some time. No record has hitherto been 

 published of these birds breeding in Bute if one counts 

 Inchmarnock as part of Bute and there are apparently very 

 few breeding stations of the Herring-gull in any part of the 

 Clyde area. Arrangements are made for the protection of 

 this colony. 



Flocks of Cormorants on the Clyde. Early one 

 morning in the middle of December 191 5, a large flock, or 

 succession of flocks, of Cormorants, passed along the Craig- 

 more shore of Bute. I counted the last part of the flock up 

 to about eighty birds, and estimated the whole at about four 

 hundred. 



On the morning of 17th January 1916 a flock of about a 

 hundred and fifty appeared swimming in the same place. 

 One of the gamekeepers on the island remarked to me that 

 he had never seen such large flocks of these birds. However, 

 in the beginning of December 1916, again early in the 

 morning, I saw another large flock in the same place. On 

 14th December a flock of about fifty went past at nine 

 o'clock. On 23rd December a flock of about one hundred 

 came at half-past nine. These birds always appeared at 

 about the same hour, going towards Rothesay Bay, and on 

 some occasions I saw them returning an hour or so later. It 

 is apparently only in the middle of winter that these large 

 flocks occur in this place. Sometimes they were swimming, 

 and apparently feeding as they went, but in other cases they 

 merely flew past. It must be unusual to see Cormorants in 

 such numbers on the Clyde, and it is curious that these large 

 flocks were only to be seen in mid-winter, and only in the 

 early morning. What they feed on I do not know. 



The Eider Duck. On 23rd January 1917 I watched a 

 pair of Eider about a hundred yards out to sea. These birds 

 are apparently rare on the Clyde. On this occasion I was 

 able to watch them carefully for some time through a glass, 

 in brilliant sunshine. 



