106 BIRDS. 



Mr. Watt, of Skaill, considers it by no means a common 

 bird on the west side of the Mainland. 



Mr. Traill, of Woodwick, informed Mr. Spence that con- 

 siderable numbers visited N. Eonaldsay during easterly winds 

 in the winter of 1880-81. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle sends us the following notes : 



" Usually builds among heather roots, under banks of burns, 

 and in bushes about streams, and in gardens. Should the 

 wind shift and blow coldly on the place where they are making 

 a nest in a bush, they will leave it and begin another, even 

 though the first is about completed. The young are very 

 tender, and hard to rear, if removed from the nest. A Wren 

 built in a basket hanging to the roof of a tool-house at Mel- 

 setter, 1875, and the first hatch was twelve young ones, the 

 next (of the same season) ten young ones, and there was one 

 egg found in the nest after the last hatch had flown. 



" The bird was not only tame, but became so bold, that she 

 would peck my fingers when I put them to the hole in the side 

 of the nest." 



In Rousay, Buckley found a Wren's nest in an elder-tree, 

 about 12 ft. from the ground, an unusual height for this bird to 

 build. 



Mr. Millais has examined the Orcadian Wren and finds it 

 is much more strongly barred than the English form, though 

 perhaps not quite so much so as that from St. Kilda. Harvie- 

 Brown and Eagle Clarke noticed that the Wren seen by them 

 in Papa Westray, in 1890, appeared to be light in colour and 

 very large. 



Family MOTACILLID-E. 

 Motacilla lugubris, Temm. Pied Wagtail. 



The habits of this species must have changed much since Low's 

 time, when he considered it migratory, never being seen after 

 May. It is now resident the year round, breeding in some of 

 the larger islands, though less numerous in the winter. 



In Rousay great numbers are seen in August and September, 

 but they get scarcer after that time. 



