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season.<br />
ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 183<br />
Up to the 315! of May I have watched them regularly, and<br />
a. few dates given show the times of their daily migration.<br />
8th March. Starlings crossed over at 6 P.M.<br />
yth April.- 7 P.M.<br />
1 7th April- 7.15 P.M.<br />
6th May. Between 8 and 9 P.M. the Starlings came over from<br />
the island, having evidently been disturbed, but went back again.<br />
yth May. Starlings in large number at 7.15 P.M. Mr. Hogg<br />
said they left the island that morning at 5 A.M.<br />
22nd and 23rd May. Crossed at 8 P.M.<br />
25th May. Starlings crossed at 9 P.M. (clear night).<br />
28th May. Between 8.10 and 8.45 nine different flocks passed<br />
overhead.<br />
29th May. Mr. Hogg told me he saw the Starlings leaving the<br />
island at 20 minutes past 3 in the morning.<br />
3oth May. Starlings seen crossing as late as 9.15.<br />
3ist May. Starlings were passing over to the island between<br />
8.30 and 9 P.M.<br />
In connection with the foregoing it may be interesting to state<br />
that my father remembers of the first pair of Starlings coming to<br />
this neighbourhood. They nested in the ruins of old Barnbougle<br />
Castle some forty years ago, and their appearance at that time<br />
created much interest. CHAS. CAMPBELL, Dalmeny Park.<br />
Goldfinch in Claekmannanshire. On the igth of May last<br />
(1900) I had the pleasure of watching a Goldfinch (Cardudis elegans)<br />
bathing, within a few yards of me, in a ditch in Claekmannanshire.<br />
It was apparently a male, and had, I have little doubt, a mate on<br />
her nest not far off. WILLIAM EVANS, Edinburgh.<br />
Tree Sparrow in Midlothian. About the i4th or i5th of<br />
February last, while the second heavy fall of snow was still lying,<br />
Mr. Nisbit, the farmer at Kingsknowes, was shooting Sparrows, which<br />
with odd Finches and Starlings congregated at a potato-pit. Among<br />
the Sparrows he had obtained I noticed one which seemed to me to<br />
differ from the others, and on examining<br />
it I found it to be a Tree<br />
Sparrow (Passer montanus).<br />
EDWIN ALEXANDER, Slateford.<br />
Red-backed Shrike in East Lothian. I saw a fine male Redbacked<br />
Shrike (Lanius colhtrio) near Whitekirk Church on the<br />
afternoon of the gth May. He was very tame, and I watched him<br />
at close quarters for some time. He was mobbed for a short time<br />
by a couple of Chaffinches. CHRISTOPHER C. TUNNARD, Tyninghame.<br />
Chiffehaff near Edinburgh. On the evening of 3oth May, I<br />
twice heard the unmistakable notes of the Chiffehaff (Pkylloscopus<br />
nifus) at Dreghorn, a suburb of Edinburgh. I have never before<br />
detected this bird in the Edinburgh district, and Mr. William Evans