98 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



accuracy of this report. In Mr James Lumsden's " Sketch 

 Paper of the Bh-ds of Loch Lomond and Neighbourhood/* 

 published in the Proceedings of the Natural History Society 

 of Glasgow in 1876, it is stated that the chough "has been 

 obtained near Bowling ; " but, unfortunately, I am unable to 

 fix a date to this occurrence. At one time it was also to be 

 met with in the Clova Hills, Forfarshire, where it is men- 

 tioned by Don in his '* List of the Birds of Forfarshire ; " 

 but, as far as I am aware, it has never occurred in Eoxburgli 

 or in any of the South Midland Counties of Scotland. Mr 

 Gray, in his " Birds of the AVest of Scotland" (pp. 162, 163), 

 makes mention of a specimen which was shot and preserved 

 in Crawfordjohn in Lanarkshire in the winter of 1834, and 

 this is probably the latest instance of the bird being met 

 with in an inland locality in Scotland. Since that date it 

 has been entirely confined to sea coast localities, and even in 

 these situations it is only met with in greatly diminished 

 numbers. Bishop Leslie, in his " De Origine Scotorum," 

 published about 300 years ago, states that in his time it 

 bred on the Berwickshire coast between St Abb's Head and 

 Fast Castle ; and this is confirmed by the Eev. A. Baird, in 

 Dr Johnston's address to the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club 

 in 1832. In vol. iii., p. 72, of the "History of the Berwick- 

 shire Naturalists' Club," Mr Hepburn, who visited St Abb's 

 Head on an ornithological excursion in June 1851, states 

 that ''the interesting chough or red-legged crow is now 

 extinct, except a solitary pair, which I am informed seldom 

 strayed from Fast Castle, a few miles to the eastward of the 

 Head." Turnbull, in 1867, considers that a single pair still 

 frequented this locality, but Mr Gray in 1869 doubts whether 

 it has been seen at Troup Head or St Abb's Head for the 

 last ten or fifteen years. Mr Sim, of Aberdeen, informs me 

 that the chough does not occur on the Aberdeensliire coast ; 

 nor, indeed, is it mentioned by Mr Thomas Edward in his 

 " List of the Birds of Morayshire." The Eev. Dr Gordon, of 

 Birnie, in a letter to me last summer, says that neither he 

 nor any of his ornithological friends have ever heard of it 

 being seen in that neighbourhood. In the time of Pennant 

 it inhabited Sutherland, and in Mr Harvie-Brown's " Supple- 



