INCREASE AND DECREASE OF BIRDS IN TAY AREA 199 



The birds I shall enumerate are the Tufted Duck, the 

 Pochard, the Shoveller, the Wigeon, and the Stock Dove. 



THE TUFTED DUCK (Fuligula cristata). Mr. Harvie- 

 Brown has already furnished the readers of the " Annals" 

 with most interesting information on the expansion of the 

 breeding area of this species, and given an exhaustive account 

 of its gradually spreading from Europe, which appears to 

 have been its original home, through Finland and North 

 Norway, to Scotland. What I wish to show in this paper 

 is the marvellous rapidity with which it has become 

 acclimatised and spread throughout the comparatively 

 small district of Perthshire. Writing in the " Transactions 

 of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science" (vol. i. p. 97, 

 1888-89), Colonel Drummond-Hay, than whom there was 

 never a more observant naturalist, reports the presentation 

 of a nest and eggs of a Tufted Duck to the Museum, and 

 speaks of it as " the first authentic instance that I have got 

 of the nest having been got in Perthshire." This nest came 

 from Methven, and was presented by Colonel D. M. Smythe. 

 Mr. Marshall, Stanley, in the same year, reports it as " a rare 

 duck with us." 



The above, however, was not the first record of its 

 breeding in Perthshire. In the month of May 1884 I 

 was fishing on Dupplin Loch, when I saw some birds which 

 I at once recognised as Tufted Ducks. At that time, 

 though this species was a well-known winter visitor to the 

 Tay and Earn, I had never heard of its breeding in the 

 county ; but on asking Irvine, the head keeper, he told 

 me that for the last few years one or two pairs had nested 

 there. On my mentioning the circumstance to Colonel 

 Irby, he scouted the idea ; but when I sent him a nest 

 and eggs which I got through the kindness of the late 

 Lord Kinnoull he was convinced. Since then it has 

 multiplied to a wonderful extent, and may now be found 

 on almost all the lochs which are contained in the basins 

 of the Tay and Earn. 



THE POCHARD (Nyroca ferind] has followed suit. In 

 the " Transactions of the Perthshire Society of Natural 

 Science" (vol. i. p. 97, 1888-89), Colonel Drummond-Hay 

 reports the nest of the Pochard as having been found at 



