5030 TuHE ZooLocist—Avueust, 1876. 
under parts light in colour. Two pairs of kingfishers were con- 
stantly passing up and down: they had evidently nests and young 
in the neighbourhood. : 
JOHN GATCOMBE, 
8, Lower Durnford Street, Stonehouse, Plymouth, 
July 7, 1876. 
Ornithological Notes. By H. M. Wa tis, Esq. 
Scarcity of the Razorbill.—On the 2nd of June, 1875, I visited 
Handa, Sutherland, and it may interest Mr. Gurney to know that 
there were countless thousands of razorbills breeding there then, 
and unless something very destructive to the species has occurred 
during the past year, they are probably breeding there now. So 
keen appeared to be the competition for eligible sites that this 
unfortunate bird was driven to lay in the most unwise places. 
I saw two eggs kicked off by the bird in leaving the ledge, and 
many deposited in places where incubation seemed impossible, 
and from whence the first movement of the chicks would preci- 
pitate them. Whilst climbing it was constantly necessary to move 
eggs occupying the only available foothold. So much for numbers. 
The guillemots monopolised all the best ledges, the puffins had all 
the holes, and as the kittiwakes had filled up the next best places 
with their nests, only the upper thirty or forty feet of the cliff was 
left for the razorbills, and there they bred with little competition 
from other species. From the number of shells on the grass at the 
summit it seemed the gray crows were fonder of their eggs than of 
those of the other birds—another reason for their scarcity, if they 
had been scarce there. Having only observed the birds from the top, 
and a few yards down, | cannot say what proportion of razorbills 
bred on the lower half of the cliff: if 1 might hazard a guess, 
I think the proportions of razorbills, guillemots and kittiwakes 
breeding on the upper half were as four, five and two, or there- 
abouts, but these proportions varied at different points where 
shags and herring gulls appeared as disturbing elements. The 
Sea Birds Protection Act is a dead letter in Sutherland, and 
I heard of t2eo boat-loads of dead birds being taken back to Lewis 
(for food or fuel?), the result of a day’s steady shooting by the 
fishermen. 
