Ii6 ^ THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



specimen of this very rare visitant. It was got at Craighall, near 

 Blairgowrie, by Mr John Leighton, gamekeeper, in February of 

 the present year. It appears to be a male, in adult plumage. 

 From information kindly supplied to me by Miss Rintoul this 

 seems to be the sixth authentic record of the occurrence of 

 Tengmalm's Owl in Scotland. It is, however, the first Perthshire 

 record. The previous Scottish records were as follows : — (i) Dec. 

 i860, Cramond Island, alive, R. Gray. (2) Feb. 1886, ? adult, 

 near Peterhead, G. Sim. (3) Nov. 5, 1901, ?, Shetland, R. Scot. 

 Mus. (4) Jan. 4, 1908, ? adult, Shetland, Eric Hamilton. (5) 

 Jan. 23, 1912, north end of Unst, alive.— Henry Coates, The 

 Museum, Perth. 



Goosanders in Orkney. — Concerning my note on the 

 Goosander {Mergus ^nerganser) in Orkney in the last number, I am 

 informed by Mr Thomas Ground of Moseley, Birmingham, that 

 he has in his collection an adult male which was shot at the same 

 place where I obtained my specimen, the Bridge of Waithe, on 

 24th Feb. 1900, and sent to him in the flesh by the late John 

 Begg of Stromness. — H. W. Robinson, Lancaster. 



Unrecorded Ivory Gull from Orkney. — Howard Saunders 

 in his Aianual of British Birds states that the Ivory Gull {Pago- 

 phila elmrnen) has occurred four times in Orkney and about thirty- 

 five times in all in Great Britain. Mr Thomas Ground of 

 Birmingham writes me that he has an adult specimen, sex unknown, 

 in his collection, which was shot at Holm, Orkney, on or about 

 I St April 1895, and forwarded to him through the late Jimmy 

 Sutherland of Stromness. It was observed on or about that date 

 feeding on a dead shark at the pier of Holm by one Flett, who got a 

 man named John Woodridge to shoot it for him. It was first set 

 up by the late John Begg of Stromness, and later by Cullingford 

 of Durham. This makes the fifth record for Orkney. — H. W. 

 Robinson, Lancaster. 



Absence of Eider in East Fife, Winter, 1914-15.— From 



20th October 1914 throughout the winter, we have been interested 

 in the singular absence of Eider {Soniateria molHssima moIHssima) 

 about the shores of East Fife. As a rule, at this season, we see 

 large flocks of these birds, this being specially the case about 

 Balcomie and the East Neuk. This winter, however, a very different 

 state of matters obtained : where before we saw flocks of hundreds, 

 this year we only saw one or two. This continued up till the end 

 of March, on the last day nf which month the Eider were back in 



