64 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. xiii. 



has taken place in the last twenty-five years. A chronologi- 

 ■cal list is given and each area is treated in detail. The 

 bird's chief breeding centres in Scotland are in the faunal 

 areas of Forth, Tay and Clyde. In Solway there are records 

 of only three colonies, in Tweed it is not so common as one 

 would expect, while for Moray there is only one record. It 

 is not known to breed in any other area. 



LETTERS. 



THE LATE FRANK NORGATE. 



To the Editors of British Birds. 

 Sirs, — ^With reference to the obituary notice [antea, p. 21), it may 

 "be well to point out that it was to the late Mr. Thomas Southwell that 

 Norgate gave his notes on the breeding of the Pochard and Tufted 

 Duck in Norfolk. A reference to the third volume of the Birds of 

 Norfolk will show that after the death of Mr. Stevenson in 1888 Mr. 

 Southwell completed the volume, and quoted Norgate's notes on several 

 •species. "When I was at work on the article on Birds for the Victoria 

 History of Suffolk Norgate gave me most valuable assistance by reading 

 over the MS. From 1888 to 1903 we saw a good deal of each other ; 

 in the latter year he left Bury and went to live at Anerley. However, 

 we corresponded regularly and used to exchange magazines, those I 

 sent to him being often returned with humorous criticisms. His 

 last contribution seems to have been to the Zoologist ior 1897 (p. 164) 

 on " Human Bones at Bromehill." Born on the last day of 1842 

 he was in his 77th year at his death, not in his 75th as stated in 

 the notice. Some of his East Anglian friends doubtless wished 

 that he had been laid to rest in the county of his birth, where so 

 many Norgates lie, but he was buried in a piece of ground belonging 

 ±0 the Church of St. John's, Upper Norwood, which he always attended. 

 Bury St. Edmunds. J. G. Tuck. 



INCUBATION DURING THE LAYING PERIOD. 

 To the Editors of British Birds. 

 Sirs, — Mr. J. H. Owen's note in the last number {antea, p. 23) was of 

 great interest to me, as I have also been making a study of the same 

 ■subject. My object in doing so was to prove a theory that all birds 

 have to incubate at intervals during the laying period if they wish to 

 synchronize the hatching of the whole clutch. It is, I believe, a demon- 

 strable fact, and one well known to poultry fanciers, that a relatively 

 stale egg will take a longer time to incubate than a perfectly fresh one 

 — hence the necessity of interrupted incubation during the laying 

 period. Collingwood Ingram. 



Westgate-on-Sea. 



