166 BRITISH BIRDS. 



Gordon is clear enough in itself. Dr. C. Gordon was a personal 

 friend of MacGillivray. The repetition in my "Fauna of 

 the N.W. Highlands and Skye," as regards their almost com- 

 plete disappearance for some years, is also correct, and was 

 upon the authority of personal investigations, and also upon 

 the authority of Mr. D. Guthrie, who, by the date of the 

 notes in " The Annals," 1896, pp. 3-22, had been some seven- 

 teen or eighteen years head-keeper to Sir Reginald Gordon 

 Cathcart, in South Uist. I quoted in the first instance from 

 the annotated copy of MacGillivray's, which was lent to me, 

 but the second time from memory of the passage. 



There appears to be little mysterj^ — or none at all — in the 

 sequence of the accounts of the Tufted Ducks in the Outer 

 Hebrides. Dr. C. Gordon as early as 1851, when he dates his 

 marginal notes in the fifth volume of MacGillivray's " British 

 Birds," spoke of the Tufted Duck as " common and plentiful " 

 in South Uist during the winter {vide Aniials S.N. Hist., 1896, 

 pp. 3-22). 



Mr. D. Guthrie, however, a most careful and capable 

 observer, reported this species as much scarcer in years 

 subsequent to 1892 ; and he had been resident in South 

 Uist at that time since about 1874. 



In 1893 actual record of nesting took place in South Uist, and 

 Mr. Guthrie verified some of his previous statements of its 

 doing so, and sent me an egg taken from a nest by himself. 

 Four pairs were known to breed in 1906, and one pair in 1907, 

 by Bahr and Kinnear. Mr. Guthrie also had spoken of the 

 Tufted Duck having been in unusual numbers in South Uist in 

 the winter of 1902-3. 



J. A. Harvie-Brov^n. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMMON SCOTER IN 

 SCOTLAND. 



With reference to Mr. Harvie-Brown's note {antea, p. 134) 

 on the distribution of the Common Scoter in Scotland, it may 

 be of interest to state that a large flock of Common Scoters 

 was seen off the south end of the island of Graemsay, in 

 Orkney, during the first week in March this year. 



With one exception, viz., a single adult male seen in com- 

 pany with an old Goldeneye drake on the Loch of Harray, 

 among a large and widely scattered flock of Pochard drakes, 

 on the last day of February, 1905, this is the only time I, 

 personally, have come across the Common Scoter in Orkney 

 in winter. Whether they occur on and around the island of 

 Tiree in the Inner Hebrides I cannot say, but I spent the 



