Mr Evans on the Birds of the Island of Eigg. 437 



records the discovery, by himself, of a colouy at Kilchoan, 

 in the western end of Ardnamurchan, in August 1880. The 

 first authentic record of its occurrence in the west of Scot- 

 land appears to be that in the Appendix to Gray's " Birds of 

 the West of Scotland/'— the locality being near Ardrossan, 

 and the date 1870 ; and at the time Mr Dalgleish read his 

 paper (Feb. 1882). nobody would seem to have noticed it on 

 the west coast, to the north of the Clyde, until he discovered it 

 in Ardnamurchan as just mentioned. When I put these notes 

 together, a week or two ago, it had not, so far as I could find, 

 been recorded from any of the Western Isles; and I sup- 

 posed I had been the first to trace it thither. A few days 

 since, however, my attention was drawn to Mr C. Dixon's 

 interesting paper, in the Ihis for the present month, on the 

 Ornithology of St Kilda, where a pair were seen, and one of 

 them shot, by that gentleman, on the 9th of June last. They 

 breed, Mr Dixon states, in the holes of the rough stone walls 

 that enclose the fields. This interesting discovery of the 

 species in the outermost of the Outer Hebrides, thus pre- 

 ceded mine in the inner islands by ten days. The late 

 Professor MacGillivray, writing in 1837 (^oide "History of 

 British Birds," vol. i., p. 350), remarks of the common house 

 sparrow, — "it is singular that in the Outer Hebrides it was, 

 until of late, to be seen only at Kilbar, in the island of 

 Barray, where it had made its abode in a ruined church, 

 although now, according to the minister of Stornoway, a 

 few individuals have appeared in that town, where they will 

 doubtless speedily multiply." May not these sparrows on 

 the ruins of Kilbar church have been Passer montanus, a 

 species which MacGillivray then confessed he had never to 

 his knowledge seen alive ? The prediction contained in the 

 closing words of the above quotation has been abundantly 

 fulfilled, as I can testify from personal observation. The 

 house sparrow does not, however, appear to be a common 

 bird, even in the inner islands, and though Mr Scott 

 informed me he was sure he had seen it in Eigg,^ I have, in 

 the absence of positive evidence, thought it advisable to 



^ Mr Macplierson informs the Editor that he found a few pairs nesting in 

 the cliffs in June 1885, close to a few pairs of the tree sparrow. 



