2 6o THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



of May on the night of 27th May 191 1. It is in much the same 

 plumage as that described by Her Grace, except that the wing 

 feathers are rather browner than in the full-plumaged male, and 

 the secondaries, wing-coverts, and outer-webs of the inner primaries 

 have brownish edgings. The tail feathers of the left side only 

 have white tips; the wing measures 101 mm. — Evelyn V. Baxter 

 and Leonora Jeffrey Rintoul, Largo. 



Late Stay of Swifts about Edinburgh. — From my house, 

 Swifts (Cypselus apus) were observed flying over Morningside Park, 

 Edinburgh, every evening right through August and up till the nth 

 of September, when the last (two) were seen. Up till 1st September 

 the usual number was eight or nine, but on one or two occasions I 

 counted as many as twenty-five to thirty in sight at one time. After 

 1 st September only two or three continued to put in an appearance. 

 On 8th September I also saw two at Liberton, hawking for flies in 

 company with Swallows and Martins. — William Evans, Edinburgh. 



Notes on the Fulmar Petrel. — Whilst in Orkney and Shetland 

 these past three months (July, August, and September) I have been 

 on the look-out for any fresh nesting-places of the Fulmar. Whilst 

 in Orkney, we visited the Calf of Eday, an islet which lies to the 

 east of Eday, and there, on the Grey Head cliffs, we found two eggs 

 and two young birds of the Fulmar Petrel (15th July). There 

 appeared to be about ten adult birds on the wing, but as the nests 

 were for the most part situated at the top of these cliffs, and also 

 were overhung, it was impossible to tell how many "sitting" birds 

 there were exactly. That there were nests one felt certain by the 

 behaviour of the birds on the wing — a bird being noticed to stop 

 and hover at one particular spot on the cliff every now and then — 

 a rather characteristic habit of the Fulmar when there is a "sitting 

 bird" about. On the two occasions on which the Red Head, 

 Eday, was visited a single Fulmar was seen flying close to the cliffs, 

 but no nest was actually found (July 191 2). The natives told me 

 that this was the first year the bird had been known to nest on the 

 Grey Head. It was known to them at the sea-fishing as the 

 Mollymawk. On the neighbouring island of Westray, where Ur J. A. 

 Harvie-Brown records them as nesting in 1901, at the Noup Head, 

 we found them in great numbers (July 1912). They have now 

 extended their nesting throughout the whole of the cliffs which 

 stretch along the west side of the island from Noup Head; little 

 isolated colonies of from three to ten pairs being found every 

 hundred yards or so. This year, for the first time, these birds 

 have begun to nest on the low-lying cliffs extending from the Noup 



