5 8 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



(including " Bridled " var.), *Black Guillemot, Oystercatcher, 

 Purple Sandpiper. Land Birds ; Sparrow, Rock Pipit, 

 Blackbird, *Wheatear, *Peregrine Falcon, Rock Dove. 

 Species mentioned as breeding are marked with an asterisk, 

 but all the Terns probably ceased doing so some years before 

 the middle of last century ; and the same may be said of the 

 Black Guillemot, although it is possible that attempts to 

 re-establish itself occurred occasionally down to a much 

 later date. Two rock-birds which one would have expected 

 to find in the list, namely the Razorbill and the Puffin, are 

 absent ; but it would be a mistake to assume from this that 

 they did not frequqnt the May previous to the early eighties, 

 when they were first recorded. Joseph Agnew, whose term 

 of service at the lighthouse dated back to the sixties, told me 

 they had bred there all his time; and so had the Oyster- 

 catcher. The name "marrot" no doubt covered the Razor- 

 bill as well as the Guillemot. Another point that strikes 

 one is the absence of any reference to passing emigrants, the 

 enumeration of which has been the outstanding feature of 

 subsequent observations, with the result that the above 

 modest list of nineteen species has grown into one of 180 

 or thereby. A list of all the birds known to have occurred 

 at the May is included in a paper on the fauna (vertebrate 

 and invertebrate) which I hope to complete before long. 



The second or migration inquiry stage will, I doubt not, 

 be fully dealt with in a paper on the ornithology of the 

 May, which I am pleased to hear Miss Baxter and Miss 

 Rintoul are preparing for publication. 



Postscript. Since correcting the proof of the foregoing paper I have 

 discovered that the edition of Wilson's American Ornithology dated 

 1876 is, for all practical purposes, a reprint of an edition published in 

 1832. Jardine's editorial notes with reference to the Peregrine Falcon 

 and Black Guillemot {ante pp. 53 and 54) should, therefore, have 

 been cited as of the latter dare. In the 1832 edition his note regarding 

 the Peregrine occurs in vol. iii., p. 252, and that on the Black Guillemot 

 on p. 224 of the same volume. If Frith be substituted for Firth the 

 notes as quoted apart from vagaries of punctuation correspond with 

 those in the earlier edition. 



