202 BIRDS. 



From all our correspondents we have received the same 

 report, viz., that the Golden Plover is not nearly so numerous 

 at any time of the year as it used to be. Of course drainage and 

 reclaiming waste lands has had a great deal to do with the 

 decrease ; but another very potent cause is the increased num- 

 ber of guns. This seems to prove that a vast number of those 

 killed in the late autumn are home-bred birds. The flocks 

 then consisting of young birds are much less suspicious and 

 more easily approached, and give a better chance to the gunner 

 than hunting a few stray birds on the hill-side in August and 

 the early part of September. Our own experience has been 

 that the Golden Plover is by no means so very abundant, either 

 as a breeding or migrating species, though in the former 

 capacity they are very widely spread. In Rousay they appeared 

 almost entirely to desert the island in the autumn ; a few, and 

 these wild and very local, appearing again in the winter. 



Others, with whom we have conversed on the subject, are 

 inclined to the same opinion as ourselves, viz., that the Golden 

 Plover is a rapidly decreasing species, not only in the Orkneys, 

 but in other places as well. 



Charadrius fulvus, Gmel. Eastern Golden Plover. 



On November 26th, 1887, Mr. J. G. Millais received, in the flesh, 

 a specimen of this bird, which had been killed near loch Stenness, 

 by a boatman, who occasionally sends him anything he thinks 

 rare. It seems to us that it showed more than ordinary dis- 

 crimination on the part of the boatman to be able to pick out 

 that bird as being anything unusual, from among a lot of the 

 common Golden Plover. The bird was recorded in the Field of 

 December 10th, 1887. 



Squatarola helvetica (L.). Grey Plover. 



Besides those mentioned by Messrs. Baikie and Heddle, we have 

 received notices- .of several others that have been procured in 

 different parts of the county. Mr. Reid obtained one from 

 Strang, Sanday, in 1848. In 1849 Mr. Ranken killed two 



