132 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



remained for nearly fifty years the only representative for Scot- 

 land, until a second was obtained in Aberdeenshire by Mr 

 Angus, who has kindly sent me the following communication re- 

 garding its occurrence: " In December, 1863, a friend sent me 

 some small birds which he had kindly taken the trouble to kill 

 for two kestrils which I then kept alive in confinement. He had 

 procured the birds while woodcock shooting near Banchory, and 

 on examining the lot I found a beautiful male Girl Bunting. It 

 weighed seven drachms and a quarter, and measured seven and a 

 quarter inches in length. Irides brown." 



Besides these examples, I may state that when visiting the 

 Kelso Museum in November, 1868, I examined a male bird of 

 this species, which Mr Heckford, the former curator, informed me 

 had been stuffed by him about the year 1840. It was shot at 

 Greenhill, near Yetholm, in Roxburghshire, and brought to him 

 in the flesh. 



THE ORTOLAN BUNTING. 

 EMBERIZA HORTULANA. 



ALTHOUGH this species is common in the southern parts of Europe 

 during summer, and visits Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in the 

 breeding season, it is very rarely seen in the British Islands. 

 Yarrell mentions but a few instances of its occurrence in England, 

 the most northern locality being the coast of Yorkshire. 



Its appearance north of the Tweed appears to have been equally 

 rare and uncertain. The first specimen must have been killed 

 many years ago; it was obtained in the county of Caithness, and 

 is mentioned by Mr Wilson in his Voyage Round Scotland in 1846, 

 but was previously recorded in the Statistical Account of the 

 Parish of Wick, published about ten years earlier. The bird is, 

 I believe, still in the collection of Mr Sinclair, where it was seen 

 by Mr Wilson. 



This would probably have remained the only recorded -Scottish 

 example of the Ortolan, but for the indefatigable diligence of my 

 correspondent, Mr Angus, who was the means of discovering 

 other two in Aberdeenshire, which are now in his own collection. 

 "In the last week of November, 1863," writes Mr Angus, "I 

 found a pair of Ortolan Buntings in a large quantity of larks 



