398 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



be remarked that in every case the specimens were procured either 

 on rivers or fresh water lochs. 



The most recently killed examples of this handsome species 

 which I have examined were obtained in the winter of 1868; one, 

 a female, on Loch Lomond, on 10th January; the other, a fine 

 male, in Islay, in February last. 



On the east of Scotland the Smew has been much oftener 

 observed, and has been met with more frequently, perhaps, in East 

 Lothian than in other counties. Nearly all the specimens I have 

 seen or heard of as visitants to that district have been shot in the 

 Tyne estuary, where many years ago I first had an opportunity of 

 examining a newly-killed specimen: it fell to the gun of my 

 lamented friend the late John Nelson, Esq., whose interesting 

 collection contained many valuable specimens of East Lothian 

 birds. In connection with the same locality, the Earl of Hadding- 

 ton has obligingly sent me the following note: " A very perfect 

 male was shot by me on the Tyne at Tyninghame in January, 

 1861; it is now in my own collection. Another specimen was 

 shot on the Tyne by Mr Hope in February, 1865; and I saw a 

 female about the same time which had been shot on the shore 

 near Tyninghame." 



So far as my own observations lead me to judge, this bird 

 is partial to estuaries where it feeds, like the Mergansers, on 

 marine worms. Dr Dewar informs me that during the Crimean 

 war he observed very large flocks of Smews frequenting the 

 shores of the Black Sea. At Varna they came in great 

 numbers to a marsh close to the walls of the town, and he 

 remarked that very few males were to be seen, the females being 

 in the proportion of twenty to one. It was supposed they fed 

 upon leeches which swarmed in the marsh. In Messrs Baikie 

 and Heddle's work, a manuscript note by one of the authors states 

 that the Smew breeds in Orkney, but no particulars are given. 



THE HOODED MERGANSER. 

 MERGUS CUCULLATUS. 



I INSERT this species on the authority of the late Mr Sinclair's 

 catalogue of the Birds of Caithness, originally published in the 

 statistical account of the parish of Wick in 1841, and afterwards 



