Recently published Ornithological Wor'ks. 441 



contributes notes on the Birds of Ettrick^ in which an im- 

 portant feature is the record of the diminution in the numbers 

 of the Short-eared Owl in the district since the subsidence 

 of the plague of voles in 1893. The nesting of the Wigeoa 

 in the above area during the last three years marks a south- 

 ward extension of the breeding-range of that species, and 

 more evidence will shortly be received on this point. That 

 Col, W. C. Verner should have shot a Long-eared Owl in 

 North Uist is fairly surprising^ but it is nothing to the fact 

 that Capt. Savile Reid and Mr. W. R. Ogilvie Grant found a 

 nest of this species on the ground on an island in Loch Syre, 

 Sutherlandshire, and in proof thereof one of the parent 

 birds is in the Natural History Museum at South Ken- 

 sington. Mr. George Sim records a female example of the 

 Lesser Kestrel (Falco cenchris) shot in Aberdeenshire on 

 October 25, 1897, and there are other notices of minor interest. 

 No. 26 opens with a contribution to the Avifauna of West 

 Ross-shire by Mr. J. B. Dobbie, and Mr. J. MacRury follows 

 with some Additions to and Notes upon the birds of the 

 Island of Barra. Mr. John Paterson expresses his dissatis- 

 faction with some supposed remarks of Saunders respecting 

 the relative abundance of the Garden- Warbler and the Black- 

 cap '^ south of the Grampians;^' but we venture to remark 

 that there is no mention of the Grampians in the 1st or 

 the 2nd edition of the ' Manual,' and that after reading 

 and re-reading the passages on the distribution of those 

 species, we are stiil completely in the dark as to Mr. Paterson's 

 meaning. Mr. Bolam writes to say that Mr. Sim's 

 claim for Scotland of a Red-footed Falcon shot near 

 Hauxley is misleading, for Hauxley is in Northumberland, 

 and quite 30 miles south of the Border; and really these 

 " raiders " cannot be allowed to " prick " so far with 

 impunity. Mr. T. E. Buckley's record of the Great Skua in 

 the Moray Firth on October 15th deserves notice for locality 

 and date. 



54. Arrigoni degli Oddi's Notes on Italian Ornithology. 



[(1) Nota sopra una Varieta di Oolorito osservata in un Anas boscas 

 Linn. Del Prof. E. Arrigoni degli Oddi. Atti Soc. Ital. Sci. Nat. Milauo, 

 xxxvii. p. 208. 



