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- 
iDgly 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 Weilenmann 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 S07ne 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 
