252 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



" P. angJorum. — Axillaries white, sharply tipped with dark 

 smoky brown, or even uniform white. 



" P. yelkouan. — Axillaries dusky, smoky brown." 



Any of our readers who may possess specimens of 

 P. puffinus from the Forth or elsewhere off the east coast of 

 Scotland, would do well to have them carefully examined in 

 case there should happen to be a yelkouan among them. 

 The Levantine Shearwater roams from the Mediterranean 

 into the Atlantic and North Sea, and has been reported, even 

 in numbers, off the coast of Yorkshire. 



Bird Notes from Lauderdale. — Within the past few years 

 the Woodcock has largely increased as a nesting species in Lauder- 

 dale. In connection with this increase the following fact may be 

 of interest. I have it on the authority of Mr Cossar, head keeper 

 here. In a letter he writes: — "A most extraordinary thing was 

 observed on this estate this season. One of the woodmen drew 

 his mate's attention to a Woodcock on its nest. 'There are two 

 of them,' he answered. And so there were two birds, sitting 

 practically touching one another. Unfortunately, on the felling 

 of a tree beside them, they forsook the nests, one with four, the 

 other with three eggs." 



Mr Cossar also, in a letter of 27th June, mentions the presence 

 of two pairs of Quail on a farm close to his house. "During 

 the last ten days," he says, "I have been hearing Quail caUing 

 in two different places near here, and have reason to believe there 

 will be a pair in each case, and that they may be nesting. One 

 was calling quite a long time before and after five o'clock. I 

 hear them, however, most about daybreak, and through the night 

 they fly round and round, uttering their call in the same way 

 we have noticed the Waterhen do." In a letter of 19th July, 

 Mr Cossar adds an interesting fact as to his experiences of the 

 ventriloquial powers of the Quail. He remarks of one that a 

 bird followed himself and a friend with a retriever for some distance 

 through a grass field, calling all the time. Their efforts to find 

 the Quail with the dog were without any result; the bird never 

 showed, but began calling again as soon as they left off searching 

 over a limited extent of the grass field. There seems no question 

 of their nesting.— Wm. M'Conachie, Lauder. 



