BIRDS. 193 



Coturnix communis, Bonnat. Quail, 



A bird that has been noticed much more frequently of late years. 

 As far back as October 4th, 1851, J. H. Dunn obtained a 

 nest containing eleven eggs, and it has since then been found 

 breeding in other parts of the Mainland. 



The late Eobert Heddle said that the Quail was seen and 

 heard in Orphir in 1853, shot near Kirkwall 12th January 1854 r 

 and again at Melsetter in 1855. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle of Melsetter says that he has killed 

 Quails several times, the last being in 1883. His father had a 

 note that he had killed them in October and December. They 

 have been seen at Hobbister at the end of May, and were sup- 

 posed to have bred there. 



In May 1881, Mr. Irvine-Fortescue heard daily for about a 

 fortnight, at Swanbister, what he took to be a Quail. 



From several correspondents we hear that a nest or two 

 have been taken in Orkney; and we saw an egg in the 

 possession of Mr. Cursiter, Kirkwall, which belonged to a nest 

 of ten taken in the parish of Holm, on the Mainland, in October 

 1881. 



Dr. Traill of Woodwick obtained a Quail in N. Eonaldsay 

 in July 1885. 



Family TETRAONID.33. 

 Lagopus mutus, Leach. Ptarmigan. 



Little information is to be obtained about the existence of th& 

 Ptarmigan in Orkney. It inhabited Hoy only, and Dunn 

 mentions, in his Guide, that a few pairs of this bird were shot 

 in one season there, but none had been seen since. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle tells us that the last birds were killed 

 in Hoy about 1831, by a Lieutenant Monro, then living in 

 Stromness, but, from Messrs. Baikie and Heddle's account, their 

 numbers had been much reduced before then, by the officers of 

 the Trigonometrical Survey. 



Mr. Eanken says that Ptarmigan were found in Orkney 

 some fifty years or so ago, but he heard that the commander of 

 a gun-boat calling at Stromness and landing at Hoy, the only 



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