412 Recently published Ornithological Wurhs. 



To this Report a useful sketch-map is prefixed, showing 

 the stations marked in red ; and in addition to the informa- 

 tions from the stations, some interesting " Ocean Notes " are 

 supplied by the officers of various steamers and by Capt. D. 

 Gray of the whaler 'Eclipse' of Peterhead. A little more 

 system might be shown in the arrangement of the Reports 

 under Families, Genera, and Species. For instance, at p. 20 

 we find Phylloscojnnfe followed by a paragraph headed "^ Tit- 

 mice'"' — why not Paridcst At p. 22, Motacillidce are suc- 

 ceeded by " Pipits " ; Corvidce are divorced from " Ravens,'' 

 which are separated from Sturnince by the insertion of Cyp- 

 selidce ; " Larks " precede Emberisida, which, again, are 

 pages away from Fringillida and next to Caculida ! Such 

 errors as Motacilladce, Muscicap«dcC, Charadriadae, seem to 

 show a want of attention to detail; and we have not gone 

 over the Report hypercritically, 



115. Buckley on the Birds of Rousay, Orkney Islands. 



[A few Notes on the Mammals and Bii'ds of Eousay, one of the Orkney 

 Islands. By T. E. Buckley, B.A., F.Z.S. Tr. Nat. Hist. See. Glasgow, 

 i. (N. S.) 1885, pp. 44-76.] 



As the author justly remarks, tlie Orkneys seem to be 

 the district of Scotland to which the least attention has been 

 paid, from a zoological point of view, of late years ; no Gray 

 or Saxby having arisen to do for them what these and other 

 naturalists have done for the Hebrides and the Shetlands. 

 Even in Scotland little appears to be known about this 

 group, for the Edinburgh ' Scotsman,' in its record of Grouse- 

 shooting, has of late more than once informed us that the 

 Orkneys in general, and Kirkwall in particular, are in the 

 Shetlands, where, as it happens, there are no Grouse at 

 all ! The more welcome are these notes on Rousay ; and, 

 as an instance of their value, it may be mentioned that in 

 them the record occurs, apparently for the first time, of the 

 authenticated occurrence in summer of the Black-throated 

 Diver {Colymbus arcticus), the partial distribution of which 

 has always been a puzzle. The species has not yet been 

 recorded from the Shetland Islands. 



