The Annals 



of 



Scottish Natural History 



NO. 48] 1903 [OCTOBER 



BIRD MIGRATION IN SOLWAY. 

 By ROBERT SERVICE, M.B.O.U. 



THERE is one special feature appertaining to Solway that 

 I wish to direct particular attention to. A glance at the 

 map will show that all the rivers flow into the Solway Firth. 

 We have the Eden draining Cumberland and a part of 

 Westmoreland on the English side ; then in Solway proper 

 there are the Esk, the Annan, the Nith, the Dee, and the 

 Cree, along with a number of smaller streams. All of 

 these flow in the same general direction, and have for ages 

 been scooping out valleys that all trend southwards. The 

 firth that receives this large volume of fresh water has its 

 outlet into the Irish Channel, the arm of the sea that divides 

 Scotland and England from Ireland. There is no doubt 

 that in comparatively recent geologic times the Irish 

 Channel was a great tidal river, of which the Solway streams 

 were its northernmost tributaries, and that this ancient river 

 valley was the route by which the birds came and went in 

 long by past ages a route which has left so strong an 

 impression on posterity that the birds still travel along 

 above what is now a broad sea-way. 



Time and space would fail me were I to attempt to do 

 more than record a few of the more salient features of bird 

 48 B 



