Notes on the recent Immigration of Mealy Redpolls. 199 



of the birds were passed on to the English markets (Manchester, Birmingham, 

 London, etc.). 



Of the movements of those that managed to evade the bird-catchers of 

 this side of Scotland very little seems to be known. Their presence, however, 

 in the counties of Lanark, Renfrew, and Ayr, on 30th October (at Possil 

 Marsh) and during November, is recorded by Mr E. W. S. Wilson in The 

 Glasgow Naturalist ; a and there is also a record from Skye, by Mr H. F. 

 Witherby, in this month's number of British Birds. 2 Whether a return 

 movement will manifest itself in the spring remains to be seen. 



Hough banks and waste ground, such as one meets with along the sea- 

 braes and in the precincts of old quarries, were the chief resorts of the 

 immigrants in this district, where they fed eagerly on the seeds of the knap- 

 weed, or " hardheads " [Centaurea nigra), nettle, thistle, etc. Those I myself 

 observed in East Lothian were flitting about clumps of nettle, willow-herb, 

 meadow-sweet, and knapweed ; and on the waste ground at the east end of 

 Leith Docks I watched several feeding along with a few siskins on a hawk- 

 weed {Jlieraciuni umbdlatum, var.), which grows there in profusion. At 

 Montrose, I am told, they left the links after a time and moved inland, then 

 feeding on the birches as well as on herbaceous plants. 



As regards former irruptions of Mealy Redpolls, it is interesting to recall 

 that one in 1855 was the subject of a communication by the late Dr J. A. Smith 

 to this Society, at its meeting on December 26th of that year. He mentioned, 

 as we learn from the Proceedings (vol. i. p. 52), that during the months of 

 November and December several flocks of the Mealy Eedpoll had been 

 observed in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and numbers taken by the bird- 

 catchers. The birds were larger than the Lesser Bed poll, none of which had 

 been taken along with them ; they had not been found in such abundance in 

 the neighbourhood for many years. Specimens were exhibited. Writing in 

 1871 ("Birds of the West of Scotland," p. 148), Gray mentions the winter of 

 18G3-64 as one in which this species was comparatively common — he had 

 seen specimens that were captured near Forfar, and numbers were taken by 

 the bird-catchers even in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. Eeferences to 

 other Mealy Eedpoll years will be found in the works of Gould, Yarrell, 

 Dresser, etc. My own notes bear witness to their presence in this district in 

 substantial numbers towards the end of the years 1885 and 1897. Some idea 

 of the magnitude of the 1847 movement may be gathered from Gatke's 

 account of what occurred at Heligoland, as narrated in his highly interesting 

 book on the Ornithology of that island. 3 



1 Vol. iii. p. 34 ; see also p. 48 as to a mixed flock on 2nd January. 



2 Vol. iv. p. 255. A record from Mull has since appeared in Ann. S.N.H., 1911, p. 114. 



3 "Birds of Heligoland," English edition, 1895, p. 392. 



