116 



BIRDS. 



the first instance of this species successfully nesting in Scotland, 

 as described by him in the Annals Scot. Nat. Hist, for 1904, p. 11. 

 After reviewing the older accounts by Montagu (1802), when no 

 records of its having bred in Great Britain had been given ; repeated 

 by Macgillivray in 1837 as thoroughly correct; and the first nest and 

 eggs obtained in the south of England (Epping Forest) by Doubleday, 

 and recorded by Sir Wm. Jardine {Nat. Lib., vol. xxv. ; Brit. BirdSy 

 vol. ii. p. 269); and its general rarity in Britain at that time, includ- 

 ing occurrences in Scotland "across the Border in Dumfriesshire," 

 then jMr. Berry further traces out its chronology in Scotland, when 

 Mr. Robert Gray wrote in his Birds of the IF est of Scotland, published 

 in 1871, he was unable to record it as a west of Scotland species, 

 though specimens had been obtained by that time "in nearly all the 

 eastern counties, as far north as Aberdeenshire, Banfi'shire (auct. Mr. 

 Edward), and Caithness. Mr. Berry then mentions its having been 

 found nesting as far north as Petersburg. Seebohm and I obtained 

 one bird in the cemetery at Archangel in 1875, but only one, and it 

 appeared to be a belated wanderer, which we Avere unable to preserv e, 

 as upon securing the specimen nearly all the feathers came off at the 

 slightest touch. 



Still quoting Mr. Berry's article: "Eeaders of the Annals will 

 remember that the capture of a very young bird in the gardens of 

 Arniston House, Midlothian, early in August 1894, was the text for 

 a paper by Mr. Eagle Clarke for the Annals of that j^ear (pp. 195-7) 

 on the 'History of the Hawfinch as a Scottish Species,' and that 

 subsequently an adult Hawfinch was recorded as having been picked 

 up dead in a shrubbery at the same place, and that Mr. Eagle Clarke 

 then ventured to prophesj- that ' we should in future be warranted 

 in considering it as among our probable home-breeders,' a surmise,'' 

 continues Mr. Berry, " that has now^ been verified." 



Mr. Berry then relates that " in the beginning of August last 

 (i.e. August 1903) a nest was discovered in my neighbourhood 

 (New^port, in the east of Fifeshire), which contained one unhatched 

 egg, the rest of the clutch having doubtless been hatched some two 

 months earlier in the year. " The finder also informed Mr. Berry that 

 a similar nest occupied the same situation last year, though, being- 

 empty when found, no particular examination had been made of it. 

 Mr. Berry continues : *' In the present instance I found the nest to 

 be placed on and among a bunch of twigs and suckers growing from 

 the bole of a large elm-tree, which stands in a shrubbery, surrounded 

 by undergrowth, about one hundred yards from a dwelling-house.. 



