BIRDS CLAIMING TO BE ACCOUNTED BRITISH. 27 1 



tells US (B. B., II., 234) that Donovan's, which had been in 

 the Leverian Museum, was knocked down to Mr. Foljambe 

 for fifteen and a half guineas ; and the Berwick specimen 

 (which is not in perfect plumage) was sold for the still larger 

 sum of twenty-seven pounds to Dr. Leach. This is con- 

 firmed in an old MS. note in the library of Professor Newton, 

 but both these high figures pale before the thirty-one pounds 

 which was offered and taken for the Maldon specimen — the 

 latest and the best authenticated, which is now the property 

 of Mr. Marshall of Taunton. 



Bruennich's Guillemot. 



I supplied the author of the Handbook before quoted 

 with several of his references to Bruennich's Guillemot. I 

 see that most of them refer to Scotland and its isles, or to 

 Ireland. I should dismiss the Emerald isle with very little 

 ceremony, for the example found floating off Dublin (Zool., 

 2609) had been dead many days, and as the recorder re- 

 marks, is hardly a fair Irish bird, assuming that it really 

 was the species in question, and the cases which Thompson 

 gives (B. of Ireland, III., p. 213) would never do to fall 

 back upon, they being something more than doubtful. 



In the same manner I should set aside Shetland, where 

 we have no later authority than Captain Ross for it, and 

 that open to grave doubts ; which leaves me no choice but 

 to turn to Orkney, and all that can be said for Orkney is 

 that we are informed by Professor Macgillivray {B. B., V., 

 p. 316) that the only British specimen he ever saw was 

 among some skins from Orkney, which had belonged to 

 Mr, Wilson, Janitor of the Edinburgh Museum. This is no 

 doubt the same individual alluded to in the " Nat. Hist, of 

 Orkney" (p. 86). 



On the mainland of Scotland we have a slight discrepancy. 

 Mr. A. G. Moore says (Ibis, 1865, p. 449) : — 



