BIRDS. 191 



Mr. William Laughton of Millhouse, parish of Holm, shot three 

 Sand Grouse the previous week near the Established Church, 

 being the first of the kind ever got in that parish. About a 

 dozen of these strange birds were seen for several days near 

 the same place. 



In a letter from Mr. J. R. Cook to Harvie-Brown, dated 

 October 21st, 1888, i he says: "On both N. Ronaldsay and 

 Sanday we came on Sand Grouse. On 1ST. Ronaldsay I think 

 there were about sixty or sixty-five we knew of. On Sanday I 

 saw only nineteen, but Briggs saw two flights, small ones, which 

 could not have had anything to do with the lot I saw. We 

 took specimens on N. Ronaldsay and Sanday. I fear there 

 are no young birds. Traill's grieve, a very intelligent man, 

 told me he saw them first in May (in N. Ronaldsay), from 

 sixty to a hundred he thought ; says they never broke up during 

 the summer, as he used to see the one flight feeding on ploughed 

 and worked land off and on all the summer. We could hear 

 nothing reliable as to their pairing on Sanday. I fancy there 

 has been no breeding on either of the islands we were on. Most 

 of our specimens were moulting however." 



From the foregoing records it would seem that if the Sand 

 Grouse ever did nest in Orkney it must have been in very rare 

 instances, and that there is something in the climate or country 

 utterly inimical to their taking up their residence permanently 

 here. 



Order 2. GALLING. 

 Family PHASIANID^E. 

 Phasianus colchicus, L. Pheasant, 



Mr. T. Ranken in his MS. notes informs us that his father obtained 

 pheasant's eggs from Dumfriesshire in June 1859, and succeeded 

 in rearing from them one hen and seven or eight cocks. The 

 hen nested several times, once having fourteen eggs, but some 

 boys found her out and ruthlessly harried the nest. The cocks 

 mated with barn-door hens, and hybrids were produced that 

 attained maturity. All these birds were gradually killed off by 



