234 



BIRDS. 



Hopeman (on the coast about seven miles from Elgin) a Blue- 

 throated AYarbler. He writes to us he ' followed it for some 

 time with a gun, but it was so wild that it escaped me. I am, 

 however, absolutely certain of its being a Blue-throat, as I identi- 

 fied it, beyond a doubt, with a strong telescope, though it would 

 be impossible to say to which of the two forms it belonged. I put 

 the date down in my game-book' (in lit. 4/i/93). 



Erithacus nubecula (L.). Redbreast. 



"Widely distributed, and resident at all seasons of the year, and equally 

 at home in the wildest glens as in the gardens near a town. Ap- 

 parently these birds' numbers fluctuate, as Mr. Baillie reports them 

 as very scarce about Brora in 1892. 



The Eobin was early recorded as ' Common ' (Fauna of Bloray). 

 Now it is ' Eesident ' and ' Abundant.' It occurs in all the wooded 

 and cultivated parts of the country, frequenting the neighbourhood 

 of houses in winter. Robins are found also amongst cut trees and 

 branches in the pine woods, and even far up among the ' slocks,' 

 ravines, birch woods, and even on the heather tracts high up 

 among the scaurs and screes of the Cam districts, miles away from 

 human habitations. The species is widel}' dispersed in pairs over 

 the whole area, except at the highest elevations, yet rarely seen in 

 any numbers at any one place, being pugnacious and exceedingly 

 jealous of each other's intrusion. 



Sub-family SYLVIINM. 

 Sylvia cinerea (Bechst.). Whitethroat. 

 Local Names.— 'Fitin' or ' Whitin' (J. 0. W.). 



A summer visitant that may be described as locally common. About 

 Inverness, where the banks of the Caledonian Canal are covered 

 with hawthorn, brambles, and other thick brushwood, the bird is 

 very common, and we are informed it is so at least as far north as 

 the borders of Sutherland, where the locality is suitable, after which 

 it appears to get rarer the farther north we go. We have no notes 

 of it from the higher and wilder glens, but it follows the Great Glen, 

 and is found at Invergarry and about Glen Urquhart. We have 

 notices of it also from most of the suitable localities along the east 

 of Ross-shire to Tain, where it was noticed by Sheriff Mackenzie 

 and by ourselves at Dornoch, across the Dornoch Firth. It would 



