is preserved. This bird was probably one of a very large flight 

 mentioned by Mr Gould as having xeached our shores in that year, when 

 examples were Ivilled in every part of the country, from the northmost 

 part of Scotland to the extreme west of Cornwall. It is now a very 

 rare and accidental visitor, not only on the Tay, but in all those parts 

 i)f Great Britain where it was once very common, and most probably 

 was the same in these parts at the time when the Carse of Gowrie, no 

 farther back than the middle of last century, was for the most part 

 covered with reeds (some of which still exist), swamps, and marshes, 

 the remains of what was once a portion of the estuary itself, then " the 

 land of fever and ague," where, no doubt, on many a night its strange 

 booming noise was often heard, but — being a strictly nocturnal bird, 

 stealthily hiding itself all day in some secure spot among the thick 

 reeds, feeding only at night on whatever it might jDick up, whether 

 u passing fish, frog, or water rail — seldom seen. Passing over the 

 •Whimbrel, Sanderling, and others, we come to the King Duck, which 

 is worthy of note as being seldom met with on British shores, yet not 

 unfrequently seen off the mouth of the Tay, and in the year 1879 

 recorded as being pretty plentiful as high up even as Dundee. 



For those not familiar with the King Duck, I may mention that 

 this very beautiful bird in appearance very much resembles the Eider 

 Duck, but in vividness of colour and beauty of plvimage it very far 

 surpasses it — the females, however, are somewhat difficult to distinguish 

 except in size, the King Duck being always the smaller of the two. 

 The next I will notice is the Little Auk, another of our occasional 

 visitors, which sometimes appears suddenly on our coasts in large 

 numbers, driven in by severe gales and heavy weather, an instance of 

 which occurred in December 1878, when a wonderful irruption of these 

 birds took place, spreading themselves from the mouth of the Tay 

 upwards, many of them having been picked up dead far inland. 

 Another similar case is that of the Skua Gulls. The Pomatorhine, 

 or as it is more commonly called the Pomarine Skua, and Richardson's 

 or Arctic Skua, visited the Tay and many other parts of the coast, both 

 in England and Scotland, in uncovmtable numbers, in October and 

 November 1879, when the former was especially abundant, which is 

 generally considered the rarer of the two, and many of both species 

 were shot on the Tay, in all their various stages of plumage. The 

 Skua, more like a Hawk than a Gull, is entirely predatory in his habits. 

 Always on the watch, he M'ill suddenly swoop down on some unsus- 

 pecting GuU or Tern, just having captured its prey, and, making it 

 disgorge, catch the prize before it has time to touch the water, and 

 like some pirate of the sea, which he ([uite represents, hasten off to 



