Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

48 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY
for the collection of the Carlisle Museum. Perhaps I may be
allowed to take this opportunity of reminding ornithological friends
that I am leaving Cumberland at the end of the year. I hope to
continue to study and record our Lakeland birds ;
letters directed to
the care of the Carlisle Museum will continue to find- me ;
but our
home address, after 3ist December, will be The Rectory, Pitlochry,
Perthshire.
H. A. MACPHERSON, Allonby.
Grasshopper Warbler nesting- in Morayshire. The Grasshopper
Warbler (Locustella ncevia) is not recorded in Messrs.
Harvie-Brown and Buckley's " Fauna of the Moray Basin " as
nesting in the district ;
nevertheless it has done so for at least the
last three or four years. In July 1896, and again in July 1897, I
saw eggs in the possession of a schoolboy which he had got beside
the river Lossie, near Elgin. I asked him to let me have the nest
if he should find another, and in July 1898 he sent me a nest and
an egg which he had obtained in the same locality.
I had little
doubt regarding them ;
but they have now been submitted to Mr.
Harvie-Brown, and he is quite satisfied as to their identity. ROBERT
H. MACKESSACH.
Yellow Wagtail at Beauly. On nth July I saw a single
specimen of Motacilla rail in the marshy meadows near the mouth
of the Beauly River. This occurrence of the Yellow Wagtail is
perhaps worth recording, as the exact status of the species in the
North of Scotland seems uncertain. Messrs. Harvie-Brown and
Buckley (" Fauna of the Moray Basin") have not seen it north of the
Great Glen ;
Booth records it from Tain and Inverness ;
and St.
John speaks of it as of rare occurrence in the county of Moray.
LIONEL W. HINXMAN, Edinburgh.
Great Gray Shrike in the Solway District. A Great Gray
Shrike (Lanius excubitor) was captured below Glencaple on i4th
October. It was kept in a cage, but died in a few days. The bird
afterwards came into my hands. It proved to be a female, and,
from the vermiculated markings on the feathers of the breast, I conclude
it is immature. This species is not nearly so frequently met
with of late years as was formerly the case, when for a considerable
period several were seen every winter. R. SERVICE, Maxwelltown.
Kingfisher near the Beauly Firth. A Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida)
was shot on a small burn close to the Firth, near Lentran, on nth
November. When a Kingfisher does visit that neighbourhood,
it is
almost sure to be found about that burn, where I have myself seen
it on one occasion in August of last year. T. E. BUCKLEY,
Inverness.
Bee-Eater in Shetland. For some days last week a strange bird
was seen flying about at Symbister, and on Monday morning Mr.