REVIEWS. 227 



ularly to know if the colony, which existed on the banks of 

 the Annan in 1832, is not still to be found there. It is such 

 a constant species where known in colonies, and respects its 

 boundaries so strictly, that a narrative Avhich does not clear 

 up such an important point is incomplete. The inclusion of 

 the Red-backed Shrike does not seem justified on the evidence. 

 The Lochmaben chronicler may have been better informed 

 than the Langholm one, but it is easy to account for the latter' s 

 mistake — he had heard of the Butcher-bird being seen, he 

 stumbled on the information that Lanius collurio is a Butcher- 

 bird, and that is how the history we have painfully to unravel 

 is made. A reader not knowing anything of Mr. John Corrie's 

 qualifications would like to be assured that his Red-backed 

 Shrike was not a Redstart ! 



Mudie should surely have been left in obscurity. The 

 quotation from him that the Spotted Flycatcher was rare in 

 Scotland in 1841, " if indeed it at all reaches that country," 

 may be put beside the following from the Rev. Wm. Patrick's 

 account of Hamilton parish, Lanarkshire, A\Titten in 1835 : — 

 " This bii'd, as far as can be ascertained, is in this district 

 confined to the vale of the Clyde at Hamilton and Bothwell. 

 It builds in out-houses and in wall-trees, in the most frequented 

 places. It is a tame and silent bird, and disappears in 

 September." 



One would not expect the Brambling to leave " in January 

 and February." In recent years there have been many 

 Scottish records (east and west) of flocks throughout March 

 and April, and even till May 1st. Saunders's statement that 

 by " the middle of March almost all have returned to their 

 northern breeding-grounds " surely requires a more or less 

 decided qualification. The Lesser Redpoll being very local 

 in the nesting-season is a disappointment to the author, 

 which will be shared by Scottish readers, who are more pre- 

 pared to hear of the great scarcity of the Twite in summer. 

 In the south-west, inland, it makes a poor show at that season. 

 It is notable that the author quotes Theobald's emphatic 

 condemnation of the Bullfincli from Kent, instead of follovvdng 

 the more patriotic course of quoting Colonel Drummond 

 Hay's emphatic commendation {Scottish Naturalist, V., p. 247). 

 Perhaps the author's sympathies are with the former. The 

 Crossbills have been most creditably disentangled. 



The resuscitation of the Starling "had begun in 1865," 

 according to Mr. Gladstone, but if he came over the hills into 

 " Clyde," he would need to carry his narrative back several 

 decades. One of the things rescued from the obscurity of 

 the files of the Dumfries Courier by Mr. Robert Service, was the 



