120 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



and Rev. H. A. Macpherson, Transactions Cuiiibcrland and 

 Westmoreland Association, 1888. 



Through the courtesy of the taxidermists in town, I was 

 enabled to examine in the flesh nearly the whole of the 

 birds sent to Edinburgh for preservation, and had thus 

 an opportunity of making a number of notes on measure- 

 ments, weights, and the condition of the birds generally, 

 which, together with the foregoing list of occurrences, form 

 the basis of the following remarks : — 



I. Dates of arrival, extent of the immigration, and sub- 

 sequent ynovenients of the birds. — If the statement in the East 

 Aberdeenshire Observer of 8th June be correct, the earliest 

 date I have a note of is 15th May, when a flock is said to 

 liave been seen at Cruden, a few miles south of Peterhead. 

 Anyhow, it is certain that by the 16fch the birds had made 

 their appearance at localities so far apart as Dunbar and 

 Shetland. On the 17th they were detected near Cockburns- 

 path, at Thurso, and in the Orkneys ; and on the 18th they were 

 seen on the coast near Elgin, and at Nairn. Eor a few 

 days tliere is a lull — scarcely a record, and these hardly 

 referable to new arrivals. On the 24th and 25th, flocks were 

 observed at North Berwick and elsewhere, which there is every 

 reason to believe were fresh arrivals, and during the next fort- 

 night we find them distributed in large numbers practically 

 alono^ the entire east coast of Scotland. Althoufrh the data at 

 my disposal is, doubtless, far from complete, I think we may 

 fairly conclude that few, if any, of the immigrants reached the 

 Scottish shores before the middle of May ; that about that 

 time considerable detachments arrived almost simultaneously 

 at various points from East Lothian to Shetland ; and tliat 

 in the course of the last week in May and the first week in 

 June the greatest movement took place, hosts of birds 

 pouring, in wave-like fashion, on to our wdiole eastern sea- 

 board. This is very much what a reference to the Heligoland 

 notes, transcribed on pages 107 and 108, would lead us to 

 expect. By this I do not mean to infer that all, or even any 

 very considerable portion, of our birds came by way of that 

 island, for, by the time the wave of immigration had reached 

 the eastern shores of the North Sea, it had spread northwards 



