360 Proceedings of the Boycd Physical Society. 



which they must occasionally be exposed to gales of wind of 

 such force as to drive the birds far out of their reckoning. 

 In such circumstances it is not difficult to imagine how these 

 herons at times find their way to our shores. 



Audubon mentions that his friend John Bachman in- 

 formed him of having repeatedly seen great numbers of 

 young night herons congregated near Charleston during 

 winter, as if they had been arrested in the course of their 

 migratory flight southwards ; and Major Wedderburn, in his 

 '•' Naturalist in Bermuda," alludes to the fact of all the night 

 herons found in that island being birds of the first year. The 

 route taken by the birds is from Cape Hatteras to the Ber- 

 mudas, a distance, as I have already said, of six hundred miles. 



The specimen now on the table, which I am sorry to say is 

 of somewhat disreputable appearance, having been much 

 injured by mice while in Mr Eaton's possession, was shot in 

 February 1877, in a wood on Kameshill farm on the banks 

 of Irvine Water. The lad who shot it states that he had 

 seen it for some time previously haunting a mill lade at 

 night near the same place. 



This is the second night heron Mr Eaton has had through 

 his hands, but I had not an opportunity of examining the 

 first one : it is referred to in the " Birds of the West of Scot- 

 land," and was shot on the banks of Kilmarnock Water, 

 about two hundred yards from the old Dean Castle. 



If the apical spots on the quill feathers niay be relied 

 upon as a specific distinction, this bird clearly belongs to the 

 American form, and must therefore be regarded as the second 

 instance of the occurrence of the species in Britain, if not in 

 Europe. 



XIII. Note on the Occnrrence of the Pintcdl Buck (Dafila acuta) 

 in the Outer Hebrides. By Egbert Gray, Esq., F.RS.E. 



(Read 21st April 1880.) 



Some years ago, while engaged in preparing a few notes 

 on the pintail duck as a British bird, I had considerable 

 difficulty in determining, from the various sources of informa- 



