2014 Birds. 



fine-plum aged ring ouzel : up sprang his family from rock and thicket, and away they 

 hied to some secure resting-place, or scudded wildly across the glen. Meadow pipits 

 were very scarce, and the whinchat was pre-eminently the bird of the treeless solitudes : 

 how pleasantly did his tiny challenge sound on the wild mountains about the falls of 

 the Glomach (150 feet high), where the juniper crouches lowly and is overtopped by 

 the ever-graceful fern. 



We have few data of the geographical distribution of our summer birds north of 

 Morayshire; and if I may judge from the ' History of British Birds,' by Professor 

 Macgillivray, who is a first-rate authority in these matters, I may perhaps be allowed 

 to state, that these observations have advanced the limits of the migration of the fol- 

 lowing species : — Caprimulga europaeus, Foyers ; Sylvia phcenicurus, Loch Bennavian, 

 Strath Glass; Sylvia sibilatrix, Foyers; Sylvia phragmitis, Glen Urquhart. At p. 

 240, vol. ii. of the above-mentioned work, Motacilla Boarula is stated to be rare to the 

 north of Inverness, and unknown in the Hebrides. I met with several on Loch Duich, 

 which is not far from Skye. Access to a good library can alone solve these doubts. 



A. Hepburn. 

 December, 1847. 



Birds of Sutherlandshire, Ross-shire, fyc. — During an excursion through Sutherland- 

 shire and the outer Hebrides, this summer, we were fortunate enough to meet with 

 several birds, which you may think worthy of notice in the ' Zoologist.' 



At Thurso I procured a gyr falcon of the first year, which had been shot a short 

 time before near the town. On one of the numerous lakes between Thurso and 

 Tongue, we fell in with a male golden-eye (May 17), and from what we heard in Suth- 

 erlandshire afterwards, we had no doubt that the female was upon her eggs. 



Upon Loch Laighall, in Sutherlandshire, we found several pairs of the bean goose 

 {Anas segetum) breeding, and procured their eggs, which agree exactly with the 

 description given of them in Yarrell. They lay generally from six to eight eggs, but 

 are so constantly robbed that they are leaving Loch Laighall, and are betaking them- 

 selves to the smaller lakes, which, from their situation, are inaccessible to mankind, as 

 no boat can be brought to them. After their nests are robbed they never lay again. 

 Upon two of the islands we found the greater and lesser black-backed, the herring and 

 common gulls, breeding, all — except the greater black-backed — in considerable abun- 

 dance. Upon Ben Stomino, a mountain about eight miles from Tongue, we disco- 

 vered an eyrie of the golden eagle, but were unable, from want of ropes, to reach it. 

 Upon a subsequent day two eaglets were taken. The beginning of April is the usual 

 time of the two species of eagle breeding in this county. The hen harrier is not un- 

 common : we found a nest with six eggs, and shot a very fine old female. In the 

 southern part of the county we met with Montagu's harrier and its nest, not, I believe, 

 before noticed so far north : not a season passes but one nest at least is found near 

 Bonar bridge. The water ouzel is very common on every stream. 



Between Tongue and Altrehara, on the 20th of May, we procured a fine specimen 

 of the red-throated diver, on a small pool near the road-side. A single egg was de- 

 posited close to the water's edge, and upon dissection a second perfect egg was found 

 in her ready for exclusion. Near Loch Maddie, on the following day, we killed a fe- 



