1919-] Recenthj published Ornitholof/icnl Worka. 363 



Grouse and Ptannigan are rapidly disappearing-. Other 

 birds which were formerly so ainindant as to be a nuisanee, 

 such as the Grey Lag Goose and the Jjesser Black-backed 

 Guilj are becoming iucreasingly rare, as well as many others. 

 Mr. Mackenzie makes no suggestion of the cause of this 

 melancholy state of affairs. 



Mr. ¥. S. Beveridge has two articles on the birds of 

 North Uist, the first dealing with the Grey Lag Goose, its 

 habits, coloration, and breeding ; it does a good deal of 

 damage to the crofters' oats, and is consequently hunted 

 down by them; perhaps this accounts for its increasing 

 rarity. The second article contains a list of all the birds, 

 147 in number, known to have occurred in the island, 

 55 of which oul}^ are resident. Another contribution on 

 the birds of the same island is a reprint of the diary of the 

 late Mr. Alfred Chapman of a visit paid in 1883. 



The Isle of May in the Firth of Forth is the subject of a 

 historical article from the pen of Mr, W. Evans, who has 

 collected together all the earlier notices of its avifauna 

 prior to the bird-migration enquiries of 1879. His earliest 

 reference is to a visit paid to the island by James IV. of 

 Scotland in 1508 " to schut at fowles with the culveryn." 



In the matter of economic ornithologv ^Ir. W. F. Colline:e 

 makes a sti-ong appeal for the use of the " volumetric '" 

 method of estimating the amount of the material in a bird's 

 stomach rather than the numerical method. In the latter 

 case the number of individual seeds, insects, etc. are 

 enumerated, l)ut in the former case the volume or bulk of 

 the various kinds of food material is given, and a far more 

 accurate conclusion as to the economic value of the bird 

 can be deduced. Another article on bird economy is that of 

 Mr. H. S. Gladstone in which he discusses the results arrived 

 at by Mr. Gunther in his Report on Agricultural Damage 

 by Vermin and Birds in the Counties of Norfolk and Oxford- 

 shire in 1916. It is chiefly a defence of the Pheasant as the 

 fai-mers' best aid in the destruction of wire-Avorms. 



