Recently published Ornithological Works. 95 



the St. Kilda group, for the bird has been stated, on good 

 authority, to breed for the past seven years, and in rapidly 

 increasing numbers, on Foula, one of the Shethmds. On the 

 other hand, the reported breeding in Skye, which Mr. 

 Seebohm cites from Gray's ^ Birds of the West of Scotland,' 

 published some fourteen years ago, is admittedly an error. As 

 to the information that " the Cormorant is intermediate in 

 size between a Duck and a Goose" (p. 655), we may fairly 

 ask which Duck and ivhich Goose ? We read with amaze- 

 ment (p. 559) that " mallard is a French word meaning drake, 

 in contradistinction to canard, which means duk " [sic] . 

 With reference to the feminine gender, the French equiva- 

 lent for '' duck " is cane ; and although mallard is undoubt- 

 edly a French word, it means a millstone, and nothing else 

 (vide Littre) ! 



To paraphrase Mr. Seebohm's own strictures on Messrs. 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (p. 611), he is sometimes scep- 

 tical where he ought to be credulous, and credulous where he 

 ought to be sceptical. The statement that there is no instance 

 on record of the nesting of the Scaup in this country, seems 

 tantamount to saying that he so utterly disbelieves in Mr. A. C. 

 Stark's detailed account (Pr. R. Phys. Soc. Edin. vii. p. 203) 

 of the identification of this bird and its eggs on Loch Leven, 

 as to deem it unworthy of notice. He doubts the occurrence 

 of the Gadwall so far north as Archangel^ although Mr. 

 Harvie-Brown has told us that there is an example in the mu- 

 seum of that town — not absolute proof, it is true ; but he unhe- 

 sitatingly accepts Henke's statement that the Harlequin Duck 

 is " a rare summer visitor to Archangel,^^ which is far more 

 improbable, and is unsupported by any evidence whatever. 

 Of the Harlequin Ducks said to have been killed in Britain, 

 he says that " the example about which no reasonable sus- 

 picion lingers, was killed in Aberdeenshire in 1858," although 

 it is notorious that the specimen, whatever it may have 

 been, no longer exists ; while Mr, Whitaker's Filey-killed 

 bird, which any one may see, and which has, at least, as 

 good a pedigree, is classed with those of which he says 

 " the evidence of their authenticity or identification is far 



