The Zoologist— August, 1808. 1305 



Ornithological Notes for the last Six Months, including Extracts 

 Jrom the Journal of a Nesting Tour in Sutherland. By John 

 A. Harvie Brown, Esq. 



December 17, 1867. Snowy owl captured at Montrose (Zool. S. S. 



January 4, 1868. To-day, when down at Grangemouth, I was in- 

 formed by several trustworthy persons that during some misty weather 

 in December, a flock, or part of a flock, of wild geese (bean) alighted 

 in the streets of the town, and three or four were killed with sticks 

 and stones, and one actually found its way into a butcher's shop, 

 whence, as may be supposed, if the proprietor obeyed his instincts, it 

 did not so easily make its exit. 



January 7. Saw in a birdstuffer's premises (Mr. P. Allan's), in Stir- 

 ling, a blackheaded gull, having a curious abnormal quill growing from 

 the left pinion : it was a bare qui,' with only a few fibres of feather at 

 the extremity. The bird was shot a few days previously on the banks 

 of the Forth below Stirling 



January 9. Saw a little grebe on the river (Canon). 

 January 10. Two young goldeneyes, male and female, killed on the 

 river I have generally before obtained adult birds in the same 

 locality. 



February 4. Saw a kestrel distinctly, with a glass, hovering over the 

 copse-wood. There are few seen inland at this season, though not 

 unhequently they are seen at the coast. 



March 26. Small parties of blackheaded gulls have been frequenting 

 the low lands near the river for the last few days. 



March 30. At Grangemouth shell-bank I killed a fine specimen of 

 the pinkfooted goose, and wounded the other of the pair with my left 

 barrel : they were flying in the same direction as, but keeping separate 

 hom, a large flock of bean geese, and came over the ditch in which 

 1 lay concealed. Saw to-day a few curlews, redshanks and one 

 dunlin, some blackheaded gulls and a kw ducks out at sea. 



April 3. Made a reconnoitering trip to a peregrine's eyrie : saw the 

 birds. The man who was with me told me that he distinctly 

 remembers the falcons breeding at the same spot thirty years ago, 

 and of the young having been taken out by a person whom he knew 

 and named. Ravens occasionally, in the absence of the falcons, 

 occupy the same cliff. 



SECOND SERIES— VOL. III. g 



