Aberdeen University Bird-migration Inquiry: First Interim Report (1909-12). By A. Landsborough Thomson, M.A., M.B.O.U. (Reprinted from the Scottish Naturalist, July, October, November, 1912 ; February, April and June, 1913.) THESE papers give details of the " recoveries " or " reappearances " of birds ringed under the auspices of the Aberdeen University. Mr. Thomson prefaces these details with a few remarks on the methods used. The Report contains full details of over three hundred recoveries, some of great interest, and many which will in time, when collated with other records, be of great use. In this connexion we are very glad to see that " no attempt, at this early stage of the work, at drawing conclusions from the facts collected " has been made, and this decision, we think, is a wise one. Among the more interesting cases we may mention the following : A Guillemot ringed in June in Aberdeenshire and recovered in November of the same year near Gothenburg, Sweden ; a number of Lapwings ringed in summer in eastern Scotland recovered in the following autumn and winter in Ireland and Portugal; a Woodcock bred in Aberdeenshire and recovered in winter in Asturias, Spain ; a Meadow-Pipit caught and ringed in Warwickshire in September and shot in Portugal in December. We have one criticism to make, which is that it seems a great pity to burden the Report with the publication of a number of quite useless cases. There are nearly 150 records relating to birds which
Volume:
Issue 4
