68 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



NOTES. 



Yellow-browed Warbler in Berwickshire. With refer- 

 ence to the note by Mr Bartholomew in the January number of the 

 Scottish Naturalist, may I place on record that I saw a Yellow- 

 browed Warbler last autumn in my Manse grounds. Strange to 

 say, the date exactly coincides with that given for the Kirkcudbright 

 record the 15th October. The note, a nervous, plaintive weet ! 

 weet ! heard through the open door was recognised at once as un- 

 familiar. On going outside I saw the bird flying about a clump of 

 rhododendrons, and watched him later in some low trees through 

 field glasses. There could be no doubt about the species, which 

 was familiar from book plate and mounted specimen. The nervous, 

 insistent note hardly ceased, and the bird itself was very restless, and 

 very much from home. At last it rose into the higher trees still 

 calling, and soon disappeared. No warblers had been in evidence 

 for some time before this. The last of them, a male Blackcap, was 

 seen on 26th September in an elder tree in front of one of the 

 windows, busily devouring the berries. William McConachie, 

 Manse of Lauder. 



Arrival of the Pied Wagtail in Orkney. In your last 

 issue it is stated that the passage records of the Pied Wagtail 

 for Orkney are few. Such being the case, perhaps the following 

 records for the springs of 1908 and 19 10 may be of interest. The 

 Pied Wagtail is an early arrival in Orkney. In 1908 I saw the first 

 in a yard in the middle of Stromness on 7th March, and another on 

 the 9th, also in the town. On nth March the first was seen in 

 Shetland at Hayfield near Lerwick. From 15th March they were 

 numerous in Orkney, particularly so on a ploughed field near 

 Stromness on the 17th, among those being a pair of White Wagtails 

 which I recorded in the Annals of Scottish Natural History. 

 In March 1910 I was paying particular attention to Wagtails, in 

 the hope of obtaining some more records of the White species 

 without any success, however. In this year I saw the first Pied 

 Wagtail at the Ness, Stromness, on 13th March, and from the 21st 

 onwards they were numerous round Lochs Stenness and Harray, 

 not only on the ploughed land, but also on the roofs of the houses. 

 H. W. Robinson, Lancaster. 



