TO THE READER 



FIFTH SEEIES 



No doubt there are ' howlers ' in this volume also, but I have 

 mislaid the notes thereof. 



SIXTH SERIES 



Page 15, line 3. After 'Gad wall' insert 'Pintail.' 



Page 18, line 16. Since this note on wild swans was written a pair of 

 whoopers (Cygnus musicus} nested and reared their young in 

 a loch in Perthshire in 1920 and 1921. The destructive vigi- 

 lance of collectors renders it expedient to suppress mention of 

 the exact locality, but the birds have been identified by com- 

 petent ornithologists, and I have seen a photograph of the 

 female sitting on her nest. The incident is most noteworthy, 

 for, if I am not mistaken, the only previous authentic record 

 of the whooper breeding in the British Isles is contained in 

 the Fmma Orcadensis of the Kev. George Low, compiled 

 between the years 1774 and 1778 and published in 1813. 



' The wild swan,' says that excellent observer, 'is found at all 

 seasons in Orkney ; a few pairs build in the holms of the loch of 

 Stenness. These, however, are nothing to the flocks that visit us 

 in October from the more northern climates, their summer retreat. 

 Part of these continue with us all the winter, and the rest go to 

 Caithness and the other northern shires of Scotland. In April they 

 go off again northward, except the few which remain here for the 

 summer." 



If it were possible to induce or compel gunners to refrain 

 from murderous persecution of these beautiful and absolutely 

 harmless birds, no doubt they would re-occupy their former 

 nesting places, and our eyes would be more frequently glad- 

 dened by what I think the grandest display of British bird 

 life a flock of wild swans, Homer's Wvta n-oXAA, KVKVW 

 SovAixoSeipwi/, winging their clamorous way under a wintry 

 sky. 



Page 103, last line but one. One who is so prone to pedantry as to 

 employ a dead language to express what could be rendered 

 equally well or better in his mother tongue, ought at least to 

 avoid blunders in grammar. Careo is never intransitive ; the 

 phrase here should read, ' caret vate sacro.' 



