206 
Like Moorhens the Cormorants use their wings under water in 
diving much as they do in flying, except that they both use the 
carpal joint rather more than the rest of the wing. 
The Puffins were nearly as tame as the Shags. The Petrels, of 
course, remained in their holes all day. Almost all the sea birds 
were so tame that I could distinctly see the colours of their legs and 
hills, and a large Seal followed our boat so closely that we heard it 
breathing and saw the water dripping from its head. 
Some birds such as Grebes and Coots seem to prefer nesting in still 
water, others such as the Water Ouzel and Sandpiper like running 
streams best. I once found four eggs of the common Sandpiper 
laid on some loose gravel in a garden in Perthshire ; two small 
streams (the Shaggy and the Turret) run through this garden. 
My thanks are due to Mr. Henry Stevenson for helping me to 
arrange the above notes, which were originally written in a different 
order and for another purpose. 
V. 
ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FOR 1875. 
By Henry Stevenson, F.L.S. 
Read ist March, 1876 . 
Wildfowl and the Winter of 1874-5. The first week of the 
new year, after the intense severity of the previous month, 
commenced with so rapid a thaw that in a few hours the heavy fall 
of snow on the ground had disappeared as if by magic ; and the 
temperature had become warm and spring like. Fieldfares and 
redwings had all disappeared from the neighbourhood of the city, 
and our resident thrushes and robins, as if they had known no 
privations, were singing as in February. 
But little fowl remained on the coast, or inland, after the frost of 
