BIRDS. 



247 



least one pair nesting among the Braes of Muchalls in May 1900. 

 But the coast in some ways is not so suited to their requirements as 

 to make us expect that they will ever be very abundant there, even 

 if carefully preserved. 



Somateria spectabilis (Z.). King Eider. 



Rare and occasional -sisitant to the mouth of the Tay in severe winter's ! 

 Seen in large numbers in 1879-80, when several were obtained. 



These birds are seen most frequently off the estuaries of Eden and 

 Tay and in St. Andrews Bay. Also in the estuary of the Forth 

 They appear to remain usually through the winter, and sometimes 

 as late as April, and then disappear. I have watched a small lot, 

 containing one old male and four or five others, off the Isle of May 

 as early as October (Forth). This was in 1884. 



Mr. P. Henderson, Dundee, has had several through his hands at 

 different times, as he informed Mr. R. Walker, when that gentleman 

 was writing his paper on this species as seen by himself frequenting 

 St. Andrews Bay {Scot. Xat., vol. ii. p. 49, 1873-4). I would like to 

 quote Mr. Walker's paper fully, but space forbids. Mr. Walker 

 speaks of an adult male obtained by Mr. Nelson as the second adult 

 male got in Scotland — so far as he was aware — and in his article he 

 gives a very complete n'sume of all the previous occurrences in 

 Britain, with very complete references in the footnotes, as well as an 

 account of its distribution abroad, including Greenland, Iceland, etc. 



With reference to a bird now in the Perth Museum, having heard 

 several accounts of this bird as doing duty for a King Eider, but 

 which is really a Common Eider female, and having verified that — the 

 specimen ha^'ing been sent to me from the Museum along with its 

 Museum label — I found it to be in full summer dress, an observation 

 made before by Mr. Millais. It was supplied to the Museum by Mr. 

 Jas. Henderson, Dundee, at the same time with other birds, which 

 included a Glaucous Gull, also in full summer plumage, and it had 

 been originally cased along with a superb male. Under such circum- 

 stances I must consider such summer-plumaged birds as of exceedingly 

 doubtful British origin ! ^ 



It is scarcely deserving of notice to repeat the statement that 



1 My readers aud intelligent ornithologists can judge for themselves, and assign 

 what values they can place upon this and other records of Arctic birds in summer 

 plumage. Two things may have happened : e.g., it must have got mixed up by some 

 one with other specimens ; or otherwise it must have migrated before it moulted, and, 

 being dated December, had not moulted at all ! 



