NOTES AND QUEB1ES. 347 



I gave one or two August records of Grey Lag Geese in that adjoin- 

 ing area, besides some other " summer " occurrences of " Grey Geese " 

 whose identity was somewhat less well established, and one or two 

 more old records of a similar nature might have been given from my 

 journals ; but it is not a little remarkable that Geese should be found 

 sufficiently recovered from their autumn moult to undertake these 

 long migrations so early in the season. That they have already 

 moulted their flight-feathers is, of course, only assumed, but it seems 

 improbable that they would venture to leave their summer quarters 

 to run the risk of passing some weeks in the flightless condition in 

 which the moult leaves them in any of their known winter resorts. 

 Mr. Abel Chapman has observed that they do not usually arrive in 

 Spain before November, though quitting their breeding haunts in 

 Norway nearly two months previously, and asks rather pertinently 

 where the bulk of them pass the intervening period (' Bird Life of 

 the Borders,' 2nd ed. p. 350). I should like to ask whether there is 

 any record of Geese having been seen anywhere, except at their 

 breeding stations, unable to fly through the loss of their flight- 

 feathers ? In the days of less scientific ornithology, of not so very 

 many years ago, the appearance of Wild Geese in this country, in 

 August, would certainly have been put down as the forerunner of a 

 severe and early winter. The real reason of their unusual visit in 

 this case, I fear, must be assigned to their either not having bred at 

 all, or to the early loss of their broods or nests. I was sorry to hear 

 from a friend only a few days ago that during a visit to Eoss-shire 

 this summer he had been unable to see a single Grey Lag Goose in 

 one of their ancient and best known breeding quarters. — George 

 Bolam. 



The Turtle-Dove (Turtur communis) in the Border Counties. — In 



' The Zoologist ' for April last (ante, p. 121) there was a note of a 

 nest of the Turtle-Dove having been found near Carlisle in June, 

 1912, which, it was then stated, was the first authenticated instance 

 of the breeding of this species in Cumberland. Students of the county 

 fauna would no doubt note this with reservations — mental or other- 

 wise — but for the benefit of less well-informed readers, I was rather 

 surprised that the statement was not afterwards qualified by reference 

 to the fact that, in his ' Fauna of Lakeland ' (p. 316), Mr. Macpherson 

 had, so long ago as 1892, already referred to more than one nest in 

 Cumberland — one of them at Scotby, near Carlisle, in 1885. Details 

 of other occurrences will be found in his book, and need not be 

 further referred to here, but, in view of the fact that the bird is yet 



