THE ATTEMPTED BREEDING OF THE BEE-EATER 153 



At the instigation of the Royal Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Birds, the Procurator-Fiscal instituted an enquiry 

 into the circumstances associated with the capture of the 

 female bird. Evidence was obtained from the persons con- 

 cerned and of those who had any personal knowledge on 

 the subject. From this official enquiry it was clearly proved 

 that no blame whatever could be laid to the charge of any- 

 one, and that Mr Marquis did his best to resu.scitate the 

 exhausted bird. It seems possible that the bird may have 

 been injured in an attempt to capture her in the nesting 

 hole, for the site is much visited by boys in quest of the 

 eggs of Sand-martins which breed in the river-bank. Or, 

 perhaps, the ungenial weather conditions may have been 

 unsuited to the food requirements of birds accustomed 

 to sunny climes at all season.s. 



Garganey near Glasgow. On i6th May 1920 Mr Thomas 

 Hill and I observed a pair of Garganey {Qiierqiiedj/la circia), on a 

 marsh at Summerston Station, Dumbartonshire. The features that 

 attracted our attention, immediately we noticed the male, were (i) 

 the white stripe from above the eye back towards the neck, (2) the 

 li-ht bJuish-grey wing coverts, (3) the buoyancy in the water. The 

 second bird, which we took to be the female, was much duller in 

 plumage, a difference quite noticeable when the two were in flight. 

 Gray, in The Birds of the IVesi of Scotland, p. 372, mentions the 

 occurrence of a pair in Upper Loch Fyne. The locality where his 

 informant resided was, we understand, Minard, and the small moor- 

 land loch referred to in all probability drains into " Argyle," 

 so that the occurrence at Summerston constitutes the first satis- 

 factory record of this species for "Clyde." Harry G. Gumming, 

 Glasgow. 



Wigeon breeding in West Ross. Having noticed in the 

 article on " The Wigeon as a Scottish Breeding Species " {Scot. Nat., 

 1920, i-^ that the only published record of this Duck breeding in 

 West Ross is that of Booth in 1868, I made special enquiry when 

 I was fishing at Coulin in May 1920. I learnt from a keeper there, 

 who knows the bird well, that the Wigeon breeds regularly on a 

 loch in this neighbourhood, though I was not able to find out the 

 exact date when it first began to do so. N. E. Baxter. 



105 AND 106 R 



