188 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The Little Auk in Scotland.— I see in the April number of * The 

 Zoologist ' ( p. 151) a notice of the paper I read last month to the Natural 

 History Society of Glasgow. Most unfortunately the report in the press 

 on which your notice is based was very inaccurate, but I did not think it 

 necessary to correct it, as I trusted to the circulation of the paper as a 

 reprint among those interested to set it right. I send a copy herewith. 

 You will see from it (1) that through Mr. Eagle Clarke I knew of the 

 occurrences in the Outer Hebrides; (2) that the Ayrshire occurrences were 

 well known to me, as I had collected the information, and in turn had 

 passed it on to Mr. Clarke; (3) that while agreeing that some of the speci- 

 mens found in East Clyde came via Forth, I cannot believe that those 

 occurring so commonly in the immediate vicinity of Oban and Islay reached 

 there from such a source. As regards their frequency in the line of the 

 Great Glen, Mr. Bisshopp, of Oban, had twenty-six birds, chiefly brought 

 to him by boys who had found them near that town ; while in Islay they 

 became common all at once "everywhere on the coast, and even far inland." 

 To this there was no parallel in the Clyde faunal area, and the vastly greater 

 population and the general interest which the press notices of the Little 

 Auk excited would doubtless have led to their being observed. It is not 

 unusual for a few birds of this species to be met with in ordinary winters in 

 Argyllshire or Ayrshire. It would be idle on the part of any one to insist 

 that they come via Forth. — John Paterson (83, Cumming Drive, Glasgow). 



[Having received by post a long and detailed printed report of the 

 meeting at which the paper in question was read, we naturally concluded 

 that it was duly authorised. — Ed.] 



Manx Shearwater in Carnarvonshire.— In the early part of June, 

 1893, I visited the locality in Carnarvonshire where Mr. Coward found 

 the dead bodies of the Manx Shearwaters, as described (p. 72). As the 

 greater number of the bodies were lying at the mouths of rabbit-burrows 

 on the top of a grass-covered sandy cliff, I fail to see how the birds could 

 have met their death by being driven by strong winds against the cliff, as 

 suggested by Mr. J. H. Gurney (p. 110). The conclusion I came to was 

 similar to that arrived at independently by Mr. Coward, viz., that men, 

 ferreting for rabbits, had come across the Manx Shearwaters in the burrows, 

 and slaughtered them. I am satisfied that the natives of that part of 

 Wales who collect sea-birds' eggs had not up to that time found out how 

 and where to obtain the eggs of the Manx Shearwater, for I used to join 

 them in their egg-collecting expeditions, aud they allowed me to act as one 

 of themselves, sometimes at one end of the rope, sometimes at the other, 

 this leading to awkward situations sometimes, as only one of their number 

 could speak English, and I am ignorant of Welsh. I questioned them 

 closely, through the interpreter, as to the "Mackerel Cocks," but they 

 appeared to be quite ignorant of their nesting-habits. Moreover there is in 



