288 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



sparrows. Apart from the more elegant shape and markings, very 

 much the same in both male and female Tree-sparrows, their quick, 

 nervous flight, shriller notes, and, above all, the twittering song, 

 wonderfully sweet to the ear when heard in early spring, are all 

 characteristic, so that one soon gets to distinguish them. During 

 the present year, this evident increase in the number of the Tree- 

 sparrows was very notable. Several pairs were observed, day by 

 day, in a cornfield by my gate. Some of them, at least, nested in 

 cavities of old ash trees near. In an ancient castled ruin by 

 Leader, where, some years ago, few if any were observed, a larger 

 colony nested in holes of the masonry. By the roadsides the note 

 of the bird is also very much more familiar. Again, on 15th October 

 last, a large flock of Tree-sparrows were seen in company with some 

 Greenfinches and several House-sparrows, in a hedge near Lauder. 

 They were coming and going between it and a ploughed field. I 

 counted fully eighty birds in the hedge, and, as a good few more 

 had just left it, there might have been considerably more than a 

 hundred Tree-sparrows. These were probably immigrants not long 

 from the sea, as they were never seen in the same numbers before, 

 and they very soon disappeared. The increase of the Tree-sparrow 

 has often made me wonder whether observers in other places of 

 the Borders have had an experience similar to my own in regard to 

 the bird. Wm. McConachie, Lauder. 



[Much information regarding the status of the Tree-sparrow in 

 the Border district will be found in Bolam's recent work on the 

 Birds of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders. With 

 reference to its recent westward penetration, this author remarks 

 (p. 148) : " Up to about 1884 it was confined, on the Borders, almost 

 exclusively to the neighbourhood of the coast, but has since pene- 

 trated westwards in a manner that is remarkable." Eds.] 



Long-eared Owl in Shetland. A young lad here caught 

 yesterday (10th November) a fine specimen of the Long-eared Owl 

 (Asio otus). It was secured without any injury, and may be worth 

 recording, as it is so seldom that the bird is seen in Whalsay. It 

 is the first example of the species I have myself seen in the island 

 during a period of eleven years. Andrew White, Whalsay, 

 Shetlands. 



Spotted Crake in Shetland. A specimen of what I take 

 to be the Spotted Crake {Porzana maruetid) was shot here on 

 19th October last. I believe this species has not often been 

 recorded from Shetland, so thought this occurrence might be 



