120 BIRDS. 



Loxia curvirostra, L. Common Crossbill. 



Since 1806 at least, flocks of Crossbills have visited the Orkneys, 

 as we have notes of them from the Mainland, Hoy, and Sanday, 

 Pentland Skerries, etc. At Melsetter they occurred plentifully 

 in 1849, 1855, 1857, and 1866; three flocks of about twenty- 

 five in each in 1868 ; and again in 1873. 



Numbers were seen in the Bishop's Palace Gardens, Kirk- 

 wall, on July 21st, 1840. 



Mr. T. W. Eanken told us that a pair of Crossbills built 

 three times in the plantation of Muddiesdale in 1882, and on 

 each occasion the nest was ruthlessly harried by egg-collectors. 

 Buckley, however, saw some of the eggs that were taken on one 

 of these occasions, and they were certainly not Crossbills. 



There seems to have been a migration of Crossbills to 

 Orkney and the north mainland of Scotland in July 1888. 

 One was seen on the Pentland Skerries on the 9th of that 

 month, and another was picked up dead about the same time, 

 and is now in the possession of Mr. Cameron of Burgar. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle, writing from Melsetter on the 16th 

 July of the same year, says his children reported to him 

 several birds that must have been Crossbills : " All were 

 reddish-coloured, and they were taking the green-fly off the 

 lower side of the sycamore leaves with their tongues," the 

 children thought. They said " they were clinging on the 

 branches with their heads down." 



As the trees here referred to are only some 20 feet high, the 

 birds could be very easily well watched. 



Some of these birds Mr. Moodie-Heddle found dead; but 

 one or two were still to be seen at Melsetter in the following 

 May (1889). 



Sub-family EMBEEIZIN^. 

 Emberiza miliaria, L. Common Bunting. 

 Ore. = Bunting or Thistle-cock. 



Common, and resident in all the cultivated islands the year round, 

 as it has been from the time of Low, who mentions that it is 



