182 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



\'l\\. — Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



Pennant's Parrakeets. 

 Sir, — Last year I sent you an account of some Pennant's 

 Parrakeets, I)red at liberty, which left the uest in adult 

 plumage. During the M'inter the female parent was acci- 

 dentally killed, and the old cock mated with one of his 

 daughters. The pair nested this summer, and the young 

 showed the same peculiarity as before. 

 27 Sept. 1915. Yours truly, 



Warblington House, Tavistock. 



Havant, Hants. 



Distribution of the Crested Tit of Scotland. 



SiK, — So far as my information leads me with regard to 

 the Crested Tit stated to have nested in eastern Ross-shire, 

 I corresponded direct with Alexander MacDonald of Balna- 

 gown, Ross-shire, quite 40 years ago. He had collected 

 eggs of Crossbills and Siskins for Mr. Hancock of New- 

 castle, but not the eggs of the Crested Tit, which species he 

 very distinctly informed me had never to his knowledge 

 bred in Ross-shire, and he himself also assured me he 

 had never met with the bird there. Mr. Lewis Dunbar, 

 however, did obtain the clutch of eggs which was supplied 

 by him to Mr. Gould, and for which that gentleman had 

 offered a handsome reward — £5. It was Mr. Gould who 

 would not credit the statement of Lewis Dunbar that 

 Crested Tits bred in " Strathspey,^' or for that part of it, 

 anywhere in Scotland ! Lewis Dunbar was introduced to 

 Mr. Gould by Mr. Snowie of Inverness in 1847. 



In a note by Lewis Dunbar, in a copy of " The Fauna of 

 the Moray Basin ^' — which belonged to him, but on his death 

 passed into the hands of Mr. Gair of Thurso, — he clearly 

 states : — "From 1847 to 1853 I was in business in Inverness, 

 but visited Grantown during the summer.^' It was in 1848 

 he sent Mr. Gould the nest and eggs, and it was in Strathspey 

 that he obtained them, as he himself assured me. 



Mr. Ogilvie-Grant's record of the presence of Crested 



