412 SYRNIA NYCTEA. 



I have recently been favoured by Dr EJmondston with 

 the following notice respecting this beautiful bird : — " The 

 first time I saw it was in 1808. An individual had been 

 shot by a lad who hung it up as a scarecrow. At that period 

 I knew nothing of book ornithology, or of animals, farther 

 than might be expected of a boy passionately devoted to the 

 observation of their habits and distinctions. The next oppor- 

 tunity of seeing one was in the spring of 1812, and when I 

 had enjoyed the privilege of a little acquaintance with the 

 High Priest of Natural History, Linnaeus. A few days after I 

 succeeded in shooting the individual, the skin of which I pre- 

 sented, about a month or two afterwards, to my friend Mr 

 Bullock, who was then on a visit here collecting materials for 

 his beautiful museum in London. He had seen the bird in 

 Orkney in July 1812, but this was the first specimen he had 

 obtained, and it was the first recorded instance of one beinff 

 killed in Britain. It continued to be exhibited in his collec- 

 tion till its dispersion. At the same time I communicated to 

 him the facts and observations I had collected resjarding the 

 species, and which I afterwards published in the Memoirs of 

 the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh ; and in this manner 

 were the claims of the Kat-yogl to British citizenship first ad- 

 vanced. 



" I have always doubted whether it bred here. Presump- 

 tions were in favour of the affirmative, but actual proof was 

 wanting. I have been lately informed that its nest was found 

 two years ago, in August, in a low rocky ledge not far from 

 here. The young, three in number, fully fledged, were of a 

 brown colour, sprinkled with grey. If it migrate at all, it is 

 in winter, though even during that season I have met with it. 

 I have seen it many times and in different localities, but I 

 never saw one in that state of plumage which I am led to think 

 is that of the young. The predominant colour of all was white, 

 a little more or less dotted with brown, hardly ever more so, 

 I think, than the specimen given to the Edinburgh Museum 

 alluded to by you in your ' Rapacious Birds.' The females 

 are much larger than the males, and less white in the plumage. 



"It is not a common or easily discovered bird ; but I do not 



