VOL. XV.] NOTES. 275 



The Indigenous Scottish Capercaillie. — It has long been 

 doubtful if a single specimen exists of the original Capercaillie 

 of Scotland. Mr. H. S. Gladstone, in a careful paper {Scot. 

 Nat., 1921, pp. 169-177) now brings forward good evidence 

 to show that the male from the Allan Museum now in the 

 Hancock Museum, Newcastle-on-Tyne, was in fact shot in 

 Scotland. The bird originally belonged to Marmaduke 

 Tunstall (1743-90) and was bought with the rest of the 

 collection by his friend George Allan. In an Appendix to 

 Fox's catalogue of the collection Mr. Gladstone finds an 

 extract from a MS. volume by Allan in which it is stated 

 that this bird " was shot in Scotland." As to the pair oi 

 Capercaillie from the Pennant collection in the British Museum 

 (see British Birds, VII., p. 3), Mr. Gladstone considers that 

 there is no evidence that they came from Scotland. 



REVIEW. 



A Synopsis of the Accipitres {Diurnal Birds of Prey). 2nd 

 edition. By H. Kirke Swann. Parts I. and II. (Wheldon 

 & Wesley). 6s. per part. 

 This is a second revised edition of Mr. Swann 's useful Synopsis, 

 the first edition of which, entitled A Synoptical List of the 

 Accipitres, was completed in March 1920 and noticed in our 

 pages. The plan of the work is the very practical one adopted 

 in the first edition, but the author has made many emenda- 

 tions and additions. The question of the East European 

 form of the Common Buzzard is a difficult one, but we do not 

 think that Mr. Swann overcomes it by treating the bird as 

 of a different species to the Common Buzzard (p. 73), as was 

 originally suggested by Domaniewski and Grassmann. In his 

 first edition Mr. Swann claimed that six of the British speci- 

 mens in the British INIuseum were of this form or species as he 

 now calls it, and if this were really so, about one-third of all 

 west European examples of Common Buzzards would have 

 to be considered as " Buteo vidpiniis intermedins." The 

 truth is we think that this is merely a rufous type of the 

 Buzzard fairly common in western Europe but dominant in 

 eastern Europe, much as the grey type of Tawny Owl is 

 common on the Continent but very rare here. Mr. Swann 

 quotes Colonel Meiklejohn as stating that the two " forms " 

 of Buzzard nest together in Esthonia, but do not interbreed. 

 We should be interested to have the evidence on which the 

 statement we have italicized is based. All those specially 

 interested in the " Hawks " of the world should provide 

 themselves with a copy of Mr. Swann 's Synopsis. — H.F.W. 



