362 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



beautiful and symmetrical spider cocoons, drawn by himself 

 from the original nests. One was from Greece, covered by six 

 of the curious shield-like expanded seeds of the Paliurus ; 

 the other was from Pernambuco in Brazil. It was exceed- 

 ingly pretty, suspended by a long spider-woven rope, with a 

 conical roof symmetrically sealed, and then ending in a 

 reversed cone which tapered very gradually to a point. His 

 friends, Messrs Saunders and Weile'nmann of St Gall, found 

 these respective nests. Mr White concluded by making a 

 remark on the regularity of what might be called the spider- 

 mind. 



(2.) Notes on the Appearance and Migration of some of the Birds of 

 East Lothian. By R. Scot Skirving, Esq. of Camptown. Com- 

 municated by Adam White, Esq. 



Towards the end of autumn unusual numbers of our more 

 common visitants arrived, and at the same time a consider- 

 able number of rarer species. A good many of the latter 

 have found their way (or rather, poor things, it has been 

 found for them) to the George Street bird-stuffers, where 

 perhaps you may have seen them. Foremost among these 

 was a fine example of the Crane shot in Shetland, which, I 

 am glad to say, has been presented to our Museum, which 

 had not a specimen of the bird. The Great Spotted Wood- 

 pecker and the Waxwing were contributed by this county, 

 where also the Great Grey Shrike has been unusually com- 

 mon. ~ I watched one of these butcher-birds for several hours, 

 in hopes of seeing him kill and stick up his prey, but failed 

 to do so. I may mention that I have observed this bird, 

 like many others which are solitary here, is to a great ex- 

 tent gregarious in Syria. On the shores of the Sea of 

 Galilee I observed them in great numbers, and I had reason 

 to believe that they built their nests in colonies in thick 

 thorn bushes, and not on high trees, as several books on 

 natural history state. The only visitor I plead guilty to 

 having " obtained/' as the phrase is, is the Skua Gull, which 

 is now becoming exceedingly rare, even in his two famous 

 habitats in the remoter Shetlands. I had never before seen 



