226 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



distinguished from other owls by the fact that the toes are 

 covered with hairy bristles and not with feathers. The bird is 

 to be seen flying about during the day, mobbed as a rule by 

 small birds (not so with the Dunfermline specimen), and for 

 this reason is used as a decoy by continental bird-catchers. 



The Little Owl is not a native of Britain. Large numbers 

 of the bird have been introduced from the Continent and from 

 time to time liberated in several English counties. They are 

 known to breed there freely, so that it is impossible to say 

 whether any of those found have been really wild. It appears 

 that one was got near Aberdeen some years ago, but it was 

 supposed to have been an " escape." 1 The difficulties 

 indicated make it impossible to assert with confidence that 

 the Dunfermline specimen was a genuine visitor ; at the same 

 time there is no information that would lead one to believe 

 that the bird had been introduced. In any event, the capture 

 is worth recording in the pages of the Scottish Naturalist. 



A LIST OF THE DIPTERA MET WITH IN 

 WESTER ROSS, WITH NOTES ON OTHER 

 SPECIES KNOWN TO OCCUR IN THE 

 NEIGHBOURING AREAS. 



By Colonel J. W. Yerbury, R.A., F.Z.S. 



I AM not clear as to the southern boundary of this 

 division, but I have assumed the district to be the whole 

 of the watershed draining to the westward from the Kyles 

 of Loch Alsh on the south to Cape Wrath on the north ; few 

 people have collected Diptera in it, the only collectors I have 

 been able to trace being the late Mr G. H. Verrall, who 

 worked Inchnadamph, Loch Maree, and Gairloch, and Mr 

 Ogilvie Grant, who collected at Kinlochewe and Gairloch, 

 and whose captures have been presented to the Natural 

 History Museum at South Kensington. Mr Verrall, in 



1 Cf. Sim's Vert Fau?ia of Dee ', 1903, pp. 122 and 295. 



