70 Mr. A. Hepburn on some of the Mammalia and Birds 



of a slender elongated filament clothed with vei-y long and deli- 

 cate hairs, fixed near the under side of the alula at its base, and 

 at a little distance from the base of the balancer." It is perhaps 

 in some such organ as this that we are to look for the origin of 

 this musical pipe ; a sound which, though not described by any 

 author with regard to the Sijrphida, one or two entomologists 

 have informed me they have heard in other insects. 



Order DIPTERA {Aristotle, Linn., Latreille, b;c.). 

 Family SYRPHiDiE [Westwood, Macquart, .Sfc). (Syrphici, Fallen.) 

 Genus Sericomyia [Meigen, 1803 ; Latreille, 1806, ^c). 

 Sp. Sericomyia borealis. 



Syn. Musca lappona, De Geer (not Linn.), Mem. pour serv. « 

 rUist. des Insectes, vi. 141. no. 6. t. 8. f. 14 (1776). 

 Musca silens, Harris, Exposition of English Insects, p. 59. 



t. 15. f. 14 (1781). 

 Sericomyia lapponum, Latreille, Gen. Crust, et Ins. iv. 322 



(1806). 

 Syrphus borealis. Fallen, Dipt. Suec. Syrphici, 20. no. 7 



(1814-17). 

 Sericomyia borealis, Meigen, Diptera, iii. 343. no. 2. t. 31. 

 f. 9 (1822); Macquart, Hist. Nat. Dipt. i. 496. no. 3 

 (1834) ; Zetterstedt, Insecta Lapponica, 590. no. 1 

 (1840) ; Walker, List of Diptera in Brit, Mus. 594 

 (1849). 



Notes on some of the Mammalia and Birds found at St. Abb's 

 Head. By Archibald Hepburn. 



On the 20th of June last, accompanied by my friend Mr. Robert 

 H. Broughton, I hired a boat at Coldingham shore, to visit St. 

 Abb's, for the purpose of procuring specimens of birds, and 

 making observations on their habits and distribution along the 

 coast. Our intelligent boatman, Hugh Grant, communicated 

 some of the following notices of the mammalia found about the 

 Head, and which appear to possess some interest in a local point 

 of view. 



The otter {Lutra vulgaris) is pretty common on the sea-shore, 

 his favourite retreats being amongst loose boulders and in rocky 

 coves ; and it would appear, from tracks on muddy ground, that 

 they frequently travel overland from Pennywick to the Well-head 

 Coves, which are situated at either extremity of the deep valley 

 dividing the mass of rock composing the headland from the 

 mainland. This animal frequently occurs on the wild coasts of 

 Ireland, the Hebrides, and Western Highlands; and as for his 



