Mr J. H. BiicJianan on the Cliowfh in Scotland. 99 



mentary Notes on the Birds found Breeding in Sutherland,"* 

 a note is given of a specimen in the Dunrobin Museum, 

 which bears the locality of Dimrobin, but, unfortunately, 

 this example bears no date. Mr A. G. More, in " Ibis " 

 (1865, p. 132), states that lie is informed by IVIr Dunbar that 

 " the chough inhabits only a few localities in Sutlierland." 

 Mr St John, in his " Tour in Sutherland " (vol. i., p. 80), 

 writes of one locality as follows : " Whilst looking for rock 

 pigeons, I saw a few of the red-legged crow or Cornish 

 chough passing from rock to rock, and busily employed about 

 the broken stones searching for food." Mr Harvie-Brown 

 suggests that Mr Dunbar probably referred to the same 

 occasion as he accompanied Mr St John during that excur- 

 sion. Mr Brown has, however, utterly failed in obtaining 

 any further evidence of the presence of the species, and is 

 inclined to think that the specimens seen by Mr St John 

 were merely accidental visitors. He, however, thinks that 

 as the chough is a species which at one time was much more 

 abundant in Scotland than at the present, it is quite possible 

 that it did hreed in Sutherland at the time when Mr St 

 John visited that county. Mr Osgood Mackenzie informs 

 me that he has been unable to find any records of the chough 

 in Eoss-shire ; but as I have no correspondent from the east 

 of this county, it is possible that they may at one time have 

 existed in the neighbourhood of the Cromarty Firth. ]\Ir Gray, 

 in his " Birds of the West of Scotland," considers that the 

 chough is still to be met with in the west coast of Skye, and 

 Mr Osgood Mackenzie has observed the bird on the Storr 

 Eocks on the same island. ^Ir Mackenzie has heard that 

 years ago there were numbers in the island of Eaasay, but 

 he does not fancy that there are any left there now. Mr 

 Gray suggests that the Skye birds have probably come from 

 the south of the Long Island, where, although now extinct, 

 they were found about fifty years ago by MacGillivray {vide 

 vol. ii., p. 323, of the " Edinburgh Journal of Natural Geo- 

 graphical Science"). I have been informed that it is no 

 longer to be met with in Tyree or Eum, and I have been 

 unable to obtain any evidence of its presence in Mull, 



* Vol. iii., pt. iii., Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc, Glasgow, p. 239. 



