592 Mr. J. I. S. Wliitaker on 



inclined to suspect tliat the species could not have made its 

 appearance in Orkney very long before Bullock was there. 

 Dunn (Orn. Guide Orkney and Shetland, p. 104), though 

 on some points perhaps not a trustworthy authority, could 

 hardly have been mistaken in repeating the evidence of 

 Mr. Traill, of Papa Westray, " that a pair of these birds 

 were constantly seen there for several years." This gentle- 

 man (whose sister, I believe, it was that sent the specimen to 

 Bullock) also stated that he supposed the birds "had a nest [!] 

 on the island, but on account of its exposed situation the surf 

 must have washed the eggs from the rocks, and thus prevented 

 any further increase.-" The expression " for several years " 

 is significant, as indicating that the birds had not been there 

 from old times, and indeed, had that been the case, one 

 could hardly imagine that the species would not have been 

 known by its terse Scandinavian name in some form or other 



for that even survived in Gaelic-speaking St. Kilda — 



instead of by such a phrase as " King " or " Queen of the 

 Auks." * 



Cambridge, 31st July, 1898. 



LI. — On a Collection of Birds from Morocco. 

 By J. I. S. Whitaker, F.Z.S. 



(Plate XIII.) 



Toward the close of the year 1896 I engaged the services 

 of Mr, Edward Dodson, with a view to sending him on a 

 collecting-tour in Tripolitana and Cyrenaica. This trip, 

 however, having been found to be impracticable, owing to 

 the difficulty of travelling in the interior of the Pashalic, 



* I observe in some of the older maps of the Orkneys (Wallace, 1693, 

 reprint 1883, and Sibbald, 1711, reprint 1845) that an anchorage is 

 marked at the north end of the sound between Papa Westray and its 

 Holm. This could have been used only by very small vessels, as there 

 are several rocks " awash '' in that part of the channel ; but if it was 

 much frequented even by fishing-boats, their occupants could not have 

 been good neighbours to any Garefowl, if such inhabited the shelves of 

 the islet, not many hundred yards off. 



