168 



BIRDS. 



but there are no other notes relating to it. Mr, E. Gray {Birds of the West 



of Scotland, p. 203) claims to have " seen specimens of this bird which had 

 been killed in Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire,"' and for the latter county gives 

 data, but none for Forfarshire, 



By 1904 Dr. Dewar marks it simply "Very rare visitor" in Forfarshire. 

 / do like Dr. Deirars laconic judgments. These are vxtrth a lot of "this 



AND THAT.") 



In absence of definity, I must exercise my brackets.] 



Family UPUPID^. 

 Upiipa epops. Z. Hoopoe. 



"Purely accidental occurrence" — so Col. Drummond Hay designates 

 its value in our faunal list. Personally, I do not like the use of the 

 word "accidentar" — never did. I prefer simply, " Eare occasional 

 visitant.'' 



Col. Drummond Hay gives several instances of its appearances 

 in the Carse of Go-wTie. One specimen is in the possession of 

 Sir Thomas Moncreiffe, which was shot at Craigie. 



Col. Drummond Hay, when wiiting to me on 3rd November 

 1885, mentions that his friend Captain Stansfield, at Duninald, in 

 Forfarshire, showed him a Hoopoe which he had shot in the park 

 there "three years ago," viz. in April 1882. This locality is not far 

 removed, from Montrose, and is described as a likely place for the 

 first "catching up'' of the land by over-sea migrants.^ 



A bird of the year — now in the Perth Mtiseum — was got by 

 Mr. Harry Wedderburn, of Birkhill, on 8th October 1892 (Col. 

 Hay Drummond in Proc. Xat. Hut. Soc. Perth., vol. i. p. vii., 1892-3). 



Dr. Dewar simply annotates his list thus : " Very rare visitor in 

 the east," 



Mr. AV. Berwick instances one obtained at Elie House on 8th 

 May 1875. 



Family CUCULIDiE. 



Cuculus canorus, L. Cuckoo. 

 Old Gaelic name, Cuach.- 



1 As already indicated (Introduction), I am not " sib " to the belief that the direction 

 in which the Forfar coast lies is a good one for '•'cat-ching up" any great bulk of 

 migrants — at least as compared with further north and further south— as I beUeve that 

 the trend of the flights ?tere is mainly from directions north or north-east, as Mr. Eagle 

 Clarke points out in his Digests of Migration Schedules. 



- Glas shionta/:hd na Cuach, literally '' the heavy storm of the Cuckoo" (old 

 Statistical Account^ vol. xii. p. 450, jxarish of Kirkcudbright). The old Statistical 



