20 
The Scottish Naturalist. 
endeavours to deny, laying the blame upon some other tourists 
from the south, and upon the officers of a revenue cutter which 
was stationed near the locality for some time. Whoever was to 
blame, the fact remains that the skuas were reduced from ^' great 
numbers " till they became in 1837 "almost extinct." They do 
appear to have been entirely banished shortly after, and when 
Saxby's "Birds of Shetland" was published in 1874 they had ap- 
parently not returned. For about the last ten years, however, a 
pair or two have annually attempted to breed on the old ground,, 
and an egg was certainly hatched in 1885. This year, 1890, no 
less than 4 or 5 pairs have made the attempt to rear their broods, 
but the treatment they have received has certainly not been of a 
kind to encourage them. Eggs have been taken and old birds 
shot in June, and in July the only pair of young hatched were 
carried off. 
Summing these totals up, we get about 75 pairs as the entire 
number of great skuas at present nesting on British soil. This 
number is quite sufficient to keep this interesting bird on the 
list of our breeding species, if — and this is imperative — they only 
receive some measure of protection from dealers and quasi- 
scientists on their breeding grounds. 
LIST OF ROTIFERA FOUND WITHIN A RADIUS OP 
TWENTY MILES ROUND DUNDEE. 
(Bead at the Meeting of the E.S.U.N.S. at Montrose in 1890.) 
By John Hood, F.R.M.S. 
Order i.— RHIZOTA. 
Family.— FLOSCULABIIDjE. 
Genus.— Floscularia Oken. 
1. F. ambigua Iluds. In marshes on Si^hagnum, Bammciilm, 
and other aquatic plants. 
Forfar, Fife, Perth. Common. 
2. P. algicola Iluds. Found only in a parasitic alga {Gloio- 
trichia pisum), on leaves and stems of various aquatic 
plants. Rare. 
Stormont Loch, Perth. 
