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Report on the Ornithology of Berwickshire, and district within 

 the limits of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. By P. J. 

 SELBY, Esq. of Twizell- House. 



A district so varied as Berwickshire, and those portions of North 

 Durham and Northumberland included within the limits of our Club, 

 where a rich productive country, celebrated for the excellence of its 

 agriculture, is intersected by numerous denes and gills, each containing, 

 or affording, a channel to a clear and limpid stream of less or greater 

 magnitude, and having their steep sides sometimes fringed with wood 

 of ancient or more recent date, at others, clothed with the rich and gol- 

 den blossoms of the whin and broom, with tangled copse of briar, black- 

 thorn, and sweetly -scented May ; where extensive woods surround and 

 beautify the numerous seats dispersed throughout its whole extent, and 

 whose holms and haughs are intersected by fair Tweed, the Till, and 

 the Eye ; whose upland districts are of that wild character which suit 

 the habits of that truly British species, the Red Grouse, and other al- 

 pine birds ; whose seaward line, from Berwick to its northernmost ex- 

 tent, is bounded by bold precipitous cliffs, which reach their highest 

 altitude at the beetling and far-famed promontory of St Abb's Head, 

 affording a secure and appropriate breeding retreat to many of our 

 aquatic summer visitants, while the low and slaky shore that extends 

 from Berwick Bay to Fenham Flats, becomes the resort of our aquatic 

 winter visitants ; may naturally be expected to present a numerous 

 ornithological list, and to contain a large proportion of the British birds ; 

 and this we think must be allowed, the annexed list exhibiting a re- 

 turn of nearly two- thirds of the birds recorded as British. 



Upon analyzing the contents of the list, and commencing with the 

 Raptorial Order, we find twelve species belonging to the Falconidee, 

 six of which are residents, the remainder coming under the denomina- 

 tion of occasional visitants : of the latter, several instances of the cine- 

 reous or great sea-eagle (Halia'etus albicilla) have occurred within our 

 precincts. All the examples of this kind that I have seen and exa- 

 mined have been in immature plumage ; a circumstance, however, not 

 at all remarkable, as the adults, when once paired, rarely leave the 

 immediate vicinity of the eyry they have selected, and the young, after 

 quitting the nest, are always driven from the district in which they 

 have been bred by the parent birds. The frequent appearance of this 

 species in lowland districts, as compared with that of the golden eagle 

 (Aquila Chryxaetos), may be attributed to its maritime and coasting ha- 



