32 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Geese in Fair Isle. — Mr. Eagle Clarke records {An7i. Scot. 

 Nat. Hist., 1910, p. 67) that a number of Pink-footed Geese 

 {A. brachyrhynchus) appeared on Fair Isle during the wild 

 weather from October 7th to 18th, 1909. The bird appears 

 to be an addition to the avifauna of Shetland. During the 

 first three months of 1909 several single Barnacles (J5. leucopsis) 

 were seen at intervals, and in October an injured B. brenta 

 was captured. 



Moult of the Great Bustard and Notes on other 

 Birds in Captivity. — In his Presidential Address to the 

 Yorkshire Naturalists' Union (December 11th, 1909), Mr. 

 W. H. St. Quuitin states {Nat., 1910, p. 112), that the Great 

 Bustards {Otis tarda) which he has in captivity moult their 

 wing-feathers gradually with the rest of their plumage during 

 the late summer and autumn, and that they do not 

 shed their primaries all together, as has been stated by 

 various writers. Mr. Abel Chapman, whose experience of 

 wild Great Bustards in Spain has been very extensive, states 

 positively that they cast " all quill-feathers (as wild geese 

 do) almost simultaneously. Hence, at the end of May, they 

 become for a time incapable of flight " {Wild Spain, p. 342). 

 Mr. St. Quintin gives some interesting information (^.c, 

 pp. 204-9) with regard to the nesting in his aviaries of the 

 Waxwing {Ampelis garrulus), Snowy Owl {Nyctea scandiaca), 

 and Raven {Corvus corax) ; a male Snowy Owl, which since 

 its fourth year had been white, except for a few black spots 

 on the tertials, had when about fifteen years old grown many 

 spotted featheis on the wing-coverts. 



Grey Phalaropes in Fair Isle in Winter. — Two Grey 

 Phalaropes {Phalaropus fulicarius) are recorded by Mr. Eagle 

 Clarke {Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1910, p. 67) as appearing on 

 Fair Isle singly, during the earliest days of 1909. 



Breeding Habits of Common Terns and Black-headed 

 Gulls.— In the Zoologist (1910, pp. 137-143) Mr. T. 

 Hepburn has some notes on a colony of Common Terns 

 {Sterna fluviatilis) and Black-headed Gulls {Larus ridibundus) 

 in Colchester Harbour. No exact observations on the period 

 of incubation could be made, but Mr. Hepburn infers that 

 close-sitting lasts twenty to twenty-one days after the full 

 clutch has been laid. Out of fifty-one nests of Common Tern 

 thirty-six contained three eggs and fifteen two only ; while 

 twenty-five nests of Black-headed Gull had three eggs and 

 nine' two onty. 



