156 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
species from and at their breeding haunts; and I relate 
some of these personal experiences in another place for what 
they may be considered worth. (See under Oyster-Catcher, as 
an example, in the “ Fauna of Moray,” when issued.) 
In conclusion, and as a resumé, my readers will, I 
believe, realise from the statistics given in detail in my 
previous paper in the Annals, that the record from Lewis 
Dunbar as earliest breeding of the species in Caithness, pre- 
dates our first earliest winter record in Tiree by some ten 
years. Also that the earlier winter or autumn record in North 
Ronaldshay, and my own in the south of Shetland, most 
nearly correlate with the jirst breeding record in Tiree; and 
further, that the earliest breeding record in Orkney correlates 
also with that in Tiree. Now all this time the whole of the 
Moray basin has been almost unfrequented even in winter, 
but a few isolated occurrences have been recorded from the 
localities on the western watershed. We may still justly 
consider the whole of the Moray basin, and the Hebrides 
and West Ross and Skye, as blank as regards the residency 
of the species, and only visited an severe weather, with the 
exception of the few instances I have given—Loch Gown, 
etc. (Annals, 1896, p. 19), one loch on the north-west frontier 
of Moray, and possibly the Loch of the Clans and Loch 
Flemington. 
Also that, while Caithness in the extreme north-east had 
become populous, Solway was almost a blank, though Ireland 
held them in thousands both in fresh water and in tidal 
areas at the same time, and for many years previous. And 
that south of the great Geological Fault contains earlier 
records of the birds breeding than anywhere to the north 
of it, and even a little earlier than Caithness. And that, as 
yet, the birds are only approaching—quite of recent years— 
a line drawn across Scotland about the centre of “ Argyll” to 
the “Tay” watershed in the west, and breeding only, so far 
as recorded, in the island of Tiree. 
The questions of interest raised by the foregoing account 
of the dispersal of the Tufted Duck seem to me to be:—In 
how far is Great Britain indebted to a direct expansion from 
easterly earlier centres of reproduction along the parallels of 
