264 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



quite motionless for fully ten minutes, a very different figure from 

 the merry little water-sprite which had just been flitting and frisking 

 in the water beneath the bridge. In deeper water the Dipper 

 unquestionably uses its wings to keep itself down, and even the 

 young, as a correspondent recently informed me, may be seen flying 

 beneath the surface. — H. Knight Horsfield, Filey, Yorkshire. 



Absence of Young Eider Drakes in Orkney in Winter. 



— During several winters spent in Orkney, I was very much struck 

 by the almost total absence of immature Eider Drakes there in 

 winter. Drakes in their first plumage with the white breast are 

 very few, whilst those in the second plumage, the piebald stage, are 

 conspicuous by their absence ; indeed of the latter I have only seen 

 one, which I knocked out of an immense flock of adults on 22nd 

 February 1904. Towards the middle of March the Drakes in the 

 first plumage begin to reappear in Orkney, and by the first week in 

 April are very numerous, but the second-plumage Drakes are still 

 absent. Among the females, immature birds are almost as 

 numerous as adults throughout the winter. Do these immature 

 Drakes in their first and second plumage go south in the winter? 

 Perhaps correspondents on the east and west coasts of the mainland 

 can show light on this mystery? It may be of interest to state that 

 one year in August I saw a flock of these piebald Drakes in the 

 second plumage off" St Andrews in Fife. — H. W. Robinson, 

 Lancaster. 



Angel-Fish off the Elginshire Coast. — It may be of 



interest to record that I saw an example of the Angel-fish {^Squatina 

 squatina) at Burghead on the 13th June last. It measured more 

 than \\ feet in length, and had been caught in a net by some fisher- 

 men who were unable to identify it. — • William Taylor, 

 Lhanbryde. 



Humble-bees from the Outer Hebrides. — Referring to my 

 note in the June number (p. 144), Mr Eagle Clarke has handed me 

 another bee which he caught at the Butt of Lewis in September 1914. 

 It is a worker o'l Bombi/s Joiie/Iits, Kirby ; the tail, however, is tawny 

 (not white), which is a characteristic of var. nivalis, Snrth. This 

 form has been taken in Harris by Dale. — William Evans, 

 Edinburgh. 



