Tue. Zootoctst—Marcu, 1872. 2969 
unusual keenness, and give expression to their grief—for sorrow I really 
believe it to be—in loud lamentations. These cries are so full of melancholy 
meaning, when heard echoing in the midst of the rock-bound lakes of that 
barren district, that few persons hearing them once would ever desire their 
repetition. Many of the natives, indeed, would never think of robbing the 
birds, on that account alone. I once asked a man living near their haunts 
on Loch-an-Astrom to get me the contents of a nest on the point of a small 
islet, where I had watched the birds for some days. ‘Ah, maister,’ said he, 
‘IT could soon do that, but I don’t like to hear the birds cry... When I 
afterwards saw the proud parents giving their two little black downy things 
their first swimming lesson at early dawn, I could not help thinking that the 
loch looked much fairer on account of their presence, and that it would have 
been almost a shame to have invested such a scene with the story of even a 
bird’s despairing cries.” 
At page 440 Mr, Gray describes a great epidemic which attacked 
many species of sea-fowl in September, 1859. “The razorbill 
perished in extraordinary numbers, being found in the proportion 
of ten to one of the other species.” These were the puffin, 
guillemot, and common gull: the shores were strewn with their 
dead bodies. It is supposed this great mortality was due to 
starvation, as “may be proved from.the fact of hundreds—even 
thousands—resorting to estuaries, heedless of danger and contrary 
to their usual shyness. The tes**aaany of the fishermen at various 
places showed that the common dog-fish was unusually abundant, 
while the small herring-fry and other fishes constituting the food 
of sea-birds had entirely disappeared.” This mortality among sea- 
fowl was widely extended at the time, for in the ‘ Zoologist’ for 
that date at page 6762, is an account of dead and dying razorbills 
and guillemots having been seen strewing the coasts of North 
Devon, and we remember to have read in the papers of the day of 
vast numbers of dead birds having been noticed, by sailors, floating 
on the waters of the Irish Channel. 
Mr. Gray’s book contains an able and interesting account of the 
history of the great auk as a Scottish bird. We have also a good 
description of the gannet, which may well be regarded as a charac- 
teristic bird of the Scotch avifauna, from the fact that the Bass 
Rock and Ailsa Crag, its most favourite stations, are both situated 
in Scottish waters. It is impossible to describe either the numbers 
of the gannet which are to be seen at either of these celebrated 
rocks, or the extreme beauty of the bird as it hovers just above 
