ZOOLOGICAL NOTES i8i 



obtained a most important advance will undoubtedly have been made 

 in our knowledge. We hope that Scottish naturalists will lend their 

 hearty co-operation. Rings and full instructions may be obtained on 

 application to Professor Thompson, The University, Aberdeen. 



Hawfinch in Fife. — On the 21st of April while walking down 

 the avenue here, I saw a bird that was absolutely new to me, and 

 returned to the house for my Zeiss glass. Aided by this, I had 

 a long look at him as he sat on the same tree with a Greenfinch and 

 a Starling. He was nearly as big as the latter, and I could make 

 out the conspicuous w^hite shoulder-band, and the bill which took 

 up nearly the whole front of the head. When it flew away, it showed 

 some white about the rump. I have no hesitation in recording the 

 occurrence of the Hawfinch at Tayfield. — Wm. Berry, Newport, 

 Fife. 



Nesting of the Hawfinch {Coccothraustes vulgaris) in East 

 Lothian. — On 9th May last (1909) a Hawfinch's nest, containing 

 five eggs, was discovered in a wood near East Linton (further 

 indication of the locality I am not at liberty to give). It was 

 placed in a holly at about ten feet from the ground where two 

 branches left the main stem. Outwardly it was made of twigs of 

 honeysuckle intermixed with grey lichen {Ramelina), the inside being 

 neatly lined with fine rootlets. Unfortunately, from some unknown 

 cause — perhaps a visit from a squirrel — two of the eggs had holes in 

 them when the nest was shown to me by the discoverer some days 

 later, and neither of the birds was then seen, though I heard one of 

 them calling in the vicinity. On 23rd May a second nest, doubtless 

 made by the same pair of birds, was found about 60 yards from the 

 site of the first one. It was also in a holly at about the same height, 

 and was composed of similar materials. Disaster, I am sorry to say, 

 overtook this nest likewise, for when I visited it about a fortnight 

 later in the hope of seeing young birds, it was found empty, with 

 only the remains of an egg adhering to its edge. 



Though young Hawfinches have on several occasions, beginning 

 with Mr. Eagle Clarke's record in this magazine for October 1894, 

 been captured near Edinburgh, this is, so far as the records show, the 

 first time the nest and eggs have been found in the Forth area. 

 From the Tay area Mr. W. Berry has recorded ("Annals," 1904, 

 p. 11) a nest in north-east Fife. — William Evans, Edinburgh. 



Bramblings in Solway. — After the end of December in any 

 season the Cock o' the North, by which title the Bramble Finch 

 is known throughout Solway, occurs so fitfully and seldom that the 

 appearance of a considerable flock of these birds on ist March is 

 an incident worth recording. On this date a bare, frost-hardened, 

 wind-swept stubble field that I happened to pass on the outskirts 

 of the town held a very restless assemblage of Bramblings, Green- 

 finches, some Chaffinches, and a few Yellow Hammers. I estimated 



