284 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



tit. Amongst the other notes uttered by the bird, the plaintive 

 far-carrying alarm " tzing-tzing-tzing " is the most prominent. I 

 should add that hitherto I have not met with the Marsh-tit in the 

 district, all the individuals closely seen having the dull unglossed 

 head which would appear to be the best field-distinction of the 

 Willow-tit. Tits are notably variable in their songs, and it may 

 prove that the two species are not easily separable in this respect. 

 S. E. Brock, Kirkliston. 



Glossy Ibis in Argyll. When spending a holiday on the 

 island of Lismore, a boy killed a bird of this species with a stone 

 in a ditch on some farm land on the 13th October 191 3. The 

 specimen was brought to me, and has been identified as an 

 immature example of the Glossy Ibis. This uncommon visitor to 

 Scotland has, I believe, occurred once before in Argyll, namely, at 

 Islay in the autumn of 1902, a season when four of these rarce 

 aves were obtained in various parts of Scotland. Charles Kerr 

 Harris, Portobello. 



Iceland Gull in West Ross-shire. It might interest the 

 readers of the Scottish Naturalist to know that yesterday (3rd 

 November) we got a specimen of the Iceland Gull (Larus leucopterus), 

 which was blown in by a gale. It was a young bird, I think, the 

 plumage being yellowish grey; bill flesh-colour, with dark horn 

 colour towards tip ; feet pale flesh-colour. Only once before 

 have we got one of these gulls, viz., in January 19 10. It, too, was 

 blown in by a gale. Constance M. Fowler, Inverbroom. 



Newts in Caithness. In A Vertebrate Fauna of Sutherland, 

 Caithness, and West Cromarty, by J. A. Harvie-Brown and J. E. 

 Buckley, published in 1887, the following sentence appears on 

 page 251, viz.: " Mr Reid tells us he never met with or heard of 

 any species of newt in Caithness." In a later volume, The 

 County of Caithness, edited by John Home, and published in 

 1907, there is a section dealing with the fauna of Caithness written 

 by David Bruce, but it contains no reference whatever to any 

 species of newt having been found in the county. Now, strange 

 to say, so far back as 1876, I have known the common newt to 

 live and breed in an old quarry hole situated less than half a mile 

 from the town of Thurso. And I was always under the impression 

 till I read the volumes above mentioned, that the newt was quite 

 common in Caithness. John Anderson, Thurso. 



[The species referred to is probably the Palmated Newt {Molge 

 palmata), which we have found in Sutherland up to an elevation 

 of 1800 feet above sea-level. Eds.] 



