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NOTES ON SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINES. 



The 'Irish Naturalist' for December contains a paper by 

 Professor J. R. Leebody on the Birds of Lough Swilly, which 

 forms a useful appendix to the series of articles on the " Birds of 

 Donegal" recently contributed to 'The Zoologist' by Mr. H. 

 Chichester Hart and others. The summer frequenters of Lough 

 Swilly are not very numerous, for, except at Dundaff, the sea- 

 fowl do not resort to the cliffs, owing, as the author believes, to 

 the absence of any strong tidal current. His experience is that 

 the parent birds mainly rely on herring-fry as a food supply for 

 their nestlings, and as the "brit" is most plentiful in a strong 

 tidal run, the birds chiefly resort to those cliffs which are in 

 proximity to such conditions. In winter, however, Lough Swilly 

 is a great resort of water-fowl, as the list shows, and flight- 

 shooters often obtain excellent sport. Dr. R. F. Scharff concludes 

 his list of the Irish Land and Freshwater Mollusca, and has 

 identified a small Planorbis, obtained by Mr. J. N. Milne at Lough 

 Swilly, as P. riparius, Westerlund, a species new to the British 

 Islands, but recorded from Northern Germany, Sweden, and 

 Siberia. In the January number Dr. R. F. Scharff discusses the 

 question of whether the Common Frog is indigenous in Ireland ; 

 the Rev. Hilderic Friend commences a series of papers on Earth- 

 worms ; and the Macro-Lepidoptera of the Londonderry district 

 are enumerated by Mr. D. C. Campbell. 



The January issue of that excellent quarterly magazine, * The 

 Annals of Scottish Natural History,' has some further particulars 

 of Risso's Grampus, near Annan, by Mr. Robert Service, a notice 

 of which appeared in 'The Zoologist* for 1892 (pp. 404, 405). 

 Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown gives an interesting account of two visits 

 to the southern portion of the Shetland Islands, — a district little 

 known to ornithologists, who usually betake themselves to the 

 northern and western islands in search of the bird with which the 

 Shetlands are especially identified, namely, the Great Skua. 

 The experiences of Saxby, the great authority on the group, 

 were, in fact, almost confined to Unst, and comparatively few 

 naturalists have explored the comparatively tame country of the 

 south, in spite of the glamour which is associated with Sumburgh 



