94 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



successfully, and they were then set at large. The following 

 year a Starling was shot, and no one knew what the bird was 

 until it was shown to Hastings. Soon afterwards, Hastings 

 used to say, Starlings became comparatively numerous. I 

 do not know the exact date of this occurrence, but it can be 

 fixed approximately from the fact that Hastings left Close- 

 burn Hall in 1837. For some years later Starlings were 

 rare enough lower down in Nithsdale. Along one of the 

 old walls of the beautiful ruins of Lincluden Abbey there 

 remains to this day a row of spikes. These were inserted 

 in May 1842 by a lad named John Mackenzie, who was 

 then an apprentice blacksmith. A pair of Starlings had 

 built in the old walls, and Mackenzie took this means of 

 climbing up to get the nestlings, which were subsequently 

 reared to adult featherhood. These particulars I have just 

 learned from Mr. Hastings (no relation of the taxidermist), 

 Nithbank, who was Mackenzie's companion on that memor- 

 able evening now more than half a century backwards in the 

 mists of the past. 



Mr. John Maxwell, Registrar in Maxwelltown, tells me 

 that when he was a boy, in May 1844, he, with a companion, 

 having heard there was a nest of these rare birds, Starlings, 

 at Long Beoch in Irongray Parish, went to get the young 

 birds. The nest was in the gable wall of the barn. The 

 boys did not get their birds, but to their great delight the 

 farmer brought them with him to Dumfries next market- 

 day, and this brood was successfully reared. Mr. Maxwell 

 says his Starlings were the talk of all the cage - bird 

 fraternity, and fanciers came from long distances to see 

 them. 



In the issue of the "Dumfries Courier" for ist January 

 1840, the then editor (Mr. John M'Diarmid), in reviewing 

 the twenty -fourth volume of the " N. S. A.," thus alludes to 

 Starlings : 



" They also breed close adjoining (i.e. Borthwick Castle), 

 and we would esteem it a favour could Mr. W. contrive to 

 send us a pair, or even an odd one. It is true the same 

 curious bird is partial to Kirkbean in our own neighbourhood, 

 but with all our art we never could manage to secure a 

 nestling, whether from the favourite sea -fanned Arbigland, 



