4 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



amongst the best materials possible to enable naturalists to 

 arrive at the larger and wider questions connected with 

 distribution and migration. In my previous paper I have 

 with sufficient exactitude traced the spread towards the 

 north through England into Scotland : in the present paper 

 I purpose simply to record chronologically the facts as 

 ascertained, and continue my previous series, and make a few 

 concluding remarks. 



From the last-dated records of the former paper there- 

 fore viz. at Gartmore, Vale of Menteith, I5th January 

 1883; and Garden (nest and eggs) I4th April 1883 we 

 start afresh. 1 



A very visible increase has since occurred from localities 

 east of the central range of the Stirlingshire hills, many 

 localities being known to me where Stock Doves have bred 

 to the south of Stirling ; and the birds have also become 

 common as far west of Stirling as Aberfoyle, penetrating in 

 this direction well up the valleys among the hills, as clearly 

 shown by our correspondents Mr. James Stirling of Garden, 

 Col. Duthie of Row, Doune, and others, to whom the bird has 

 indeed become familiar since its first-recorded advent in 1883. 



But while the species has thus spread across between 

 Forth and Clyde, and penetrated far up the Forth valley, it 

 is somewhat strange to find that a corresponding increase 

 has not made itself apparent in the counties adjoining the 

 Firth of Forth along the north shore. My friend Mr. J. J. 

 Dalgleish of Brankston Grange, near Alloa, in reply to my 

 circular, says : " There has been no increase. No further 

 information has been received beyond the fact of one killed 

 on the estate on 2nd April 1878 [already recorded in my 

 previous article]. I have heard of no others in the neighbour- 

 hood since." Among Wood-pigeons killed in the low Kerse 

 of Falkirk, I received several Stock Doves, and have seen 

 others at various times, but that was principally during the 

 early springs of their first colonisation of the Denny foot-hills 

 and Vale of Menteith. At first they appear to have been 

 feeling their way, resting and feeding often. Now it would 

 almost appear that the migrant birds rush up at once to their 

 breeding zones, resting little, or not at all, among the low- 

 1 "Royal Phys. Soc. Proc.," vol. vii. p. 254. 



