292 



BIRDS. 



Order ALECTORIDES. 



Family OTIDID-S:. 



Otis tetrax, L. Little Bustard. 



Some years ago I saw a specimen of the Little Bustard in the Museum 

 at St. Andrews, but at the time could obtain no sufficiently definite 

 authentication of it, though assured that it was obtained in the 

 district. I am indebted to Mr. AVilliam Evans, who also saw it there 

 in 1890, for the reference, which had, curiously enough, escaped me, 

 as it had also apparently escaped other subsequent writers. 



"With the exceptions of a very general statement in the latest 

 edition of Yarrell's British Birds (vol. iii. p. 217) that four examples 

 of the species had been obtained in Scotland, mostly on the east 

 coast, and a short and slightly more definite mention in Dresser's 

 Birds of the Western Palceardic Region, the following account in very 

 full detail by Macgillivray seems to have been left unnoticed until 

 Mr. Evans found it. I quote the original record by Macgillivray, as 

 it is one of the earliest of its occurrences given for Scotland. 



Macgillivray says (vol. iv. p. 39) : " The only specimen obtained 

 there {i.e. in Scotland), in so far as I can learn, is a female, which 

 Mr. John Adamson informs me was shot on the 6th of March 1840, 

 near St. Andrews. It was first seen among turnips on the farm of 

 Burnside. When raised, it took a short flight \Wth outstretched 

 neck like a duck, and again settled in an adjoining ploughed field, 

 where it was found with some difficulty, as it sat close. It gave a 

 peculiar chirping cry on rising. It was in fine condition, weighing 

 twentj^-eight ounces, and, on being prepared, was placed in the 

 Museum of the St. Andrews Literary and Philosophical Society." 



In Yarrell's first edition (vol. ii. p. 373) the onlj^ previous Scottish 

 specimen is the one obtained near Montrose in December 1833.^ 

 Yarrell's first edition bears date of 1843, so he cannot have had news 

 of the above St. Andrews specimen at that date, nor is it mentioned 

 in the first or second supplement. I have not examined the second 

 and third editions of Yarrell's British Birds. 



It appears, therefore, that these two early occurrences are both 

 claimed for our present area. 



^ This information was supplied by Mr. Thomas Macpherson Grant, of Craigo, 

 whose name will be found frequently mentioned in our volumes on the Fauna of the 

 Moray Basin ; and I possess many of his letters which were written to the late Rev. 

 Dr. George Gordon, of Birnie, in connection with the birds of Moray, and the extensive 

 collection which he gave to the Museum at Elgin, Thus, as above, it appears he had 

 also been a correspondent of Yarrell's. 



