95 



discovery was made by some of the Geological 

 Surveyors, and has been recorded by Mr. Harvie- 

 Brown. Very few pairs remain in Britain, and then 

 only on the highest mountains of Scotland, a fact that 

 entitles it to a place in this brief account. The known 

 localities in which the Snow Bunting is resident are 

 very few, and I have never met with it, even on 

 the ptarmigan ground, though in the Lowlands of 

 Scotland, about Edinburgh, I have seen large flocks. 



Although the regions given over to the deer are 

 desolate and depressing in their solitude, they 

 exercise a charm on a sensitive mind, especially that 

 of a naturalist. One gets used to the loneliness of 

 these mountain fastnesses, where the silence may be 

 broken only by the crow of Grouse or Ptarmigan, the 

 sweet plaintive whistle of the Snow Bunting, or the 

 wild cry of the Buzzard or Golden Eagle, and when 

 once one has learnt to love the forests and their 

 natural inhabitants, one longs to return to them again. 



a ipeculiaiitv? of tbe Dasa iparrot. 



By W. T. GrEEnk, M.A., M.D., F.Z.S. 



'-w^ HE Vasa Parrots, genus Coracopsis, form an 

 Cr\ important section of the sub-family Psittacince 

 V^ of the family PsittacidcB, remarkable chiefly for 

 some peculiarities connected with the repro- 

 ductive organs which render these otherwise charming 

 birds decidedly objectionable as pets in confinement. 

 The subject is not one that readily lends itself to 

 discussion in the pages of a popular periodical like 

 " Bird Notes," but the deviation from the form and 

 habits general in the class Aves is so great as to render 

 some allusion to it not only interesting but necessary, 

 especially as the writer has never seen it noticed by 

 any ornithologist with whose writings he is acquainted. 



