202 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



the valleys which follow the courses of the streams, so that 

 a feature of the scenery is the number of hills for the most 

 part grassy cut off from one another and attaining to alti- 

 tudes varying from 1220 ft. (Woodlands or Black Hill) to 

 i i 56 ft (Carmichael Hill), to 1014 ft. (Crossridge), and 884 ft. 

 (Whitecastle). The district, although upland, the lowest 

 elevation being over 600 ft., is fertile where arable, and in 

 favourable seasons good crops of hay and oats are reaped. 

 But, as can be understood, seeing it is so far inland as well 

 as upland, spring is late and autumn quickly passes into the 

 severity of winter, and this remark applies to the whole of 

 the Upper Ward. 



On the east of the Carmichael Burn the hillsides and 

 valleys are well sprinkled with fine old beeches in rows and 

 clumps not less than 150 years old. These afford fine situa- 

 tions for several rookeries. Within and adjoining Carmichael 

 Policies are many thriving young plantations of spruce and 

 fir interspersed with hardwood, of ages varying from two to 

 twenty-five years' planting. On the Eastend Estate at the 

 base of Tinto stretch long plantations of old larch and Scotch 

 fir sadly decimated by the winter storms of 1883-84. On 

 the Douglas Estate the hill above the Manse is well wooded 

 with fir and spruce on its N.E. and S.E. slopes, and the 

 heathery sides of Stonehill are covered on the N.W. with an 

 old plantation of fir and hardwood, part of which was also 

 levelled by these storms, but has been renewed a few years 



ago. 



The following list is the result of observation, more or 

 less continuous, during a residence in the parish of over twelve 

 years. It is not published with any pretensions to com- 

 pleteness or finality, but as a contribution towards an Avi- 

 fauna of Upper Clydesdale. It may not be inappropriate 

 in this connection to quote the following from White's classic 

 " Selborne " : " It is now more than forty years that I paid 

 some attention to the ornithology of this district ; without 

 being able to exhaust the subject, new occurrences still arise 

 as long as inquiries are kept alive." In the preparation of 

 the list I have had the benefit of the help of others ; to one 

 and all of those named in the text I offer my sincere thanks. 

 To my much esteemed friend Sir W. Carmichael Anstruther, 



