12 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



Stirlingshire may be looked upon as the connecting link between 

 Forth and Clyde, but the Central Hills of the county act rather as a 

 check to the advance of many species beyond, as we have before 

 pointed out, except along the east foothills and over Falkirk Kerse, 

 and the depression between Forth and Clyde, which reaches an alti- 

 tude of only 120 feet above sea-level, and northward via the Blane 

 Valley, and again via Loch Lomond and the Firth of Clyde. The 

 next connecting area is on the north side of the Central Hills, e.g. 

 Campsie Fells, Denny Hills, Gargunnock and Boquhan, and Fintry 

 Hills, and is represented by the drainage of the Forth river and the 

 low watershed between the Forth and Loch Lomond, across the mosses 

 of Blairdrummond, Flanders, and Bucklyvie. Thus it will be seen 

 that it is natural to expect considerable similarity in the general 

 faunas of Clyde and Forth, where they may be said to "join hands " 

 south and north of the Central Hills ; but that considerable differ- 

 ences may be looked for if the drainage areas in their entirety be 

 looked to, and the configurations and consequent characters of the 

 two faunal areas be studied. The Central Hills of Stirlingshire, how- 

 ever, can only be regarded as insular in significance, feeding as they 

 do tributaries of " Forth " Carron, Bonny, and finally Forth and 

 to an almost equal degree feeding " Clyde " Endrick, Blane Valley, 

 Keltic, Kelvin, etc., both on the north and south, west and east. 



The earliest records I can find in my old journals are both 

 referrible to winter occurrences, viz. one > bought from Small of 

 Edinburgh about 1866, and two PS received from Mr. Samuel 

 Berry Singer, long time punt-shooter at Kincardine on Forth, 

 shot there by himself, and sent to me as "rarities" on iSth January 

 1867 ; but in September of the same year (1867) I find I had 

 made a note in the "Zoologist" (p. 904): "Tufted Duck plentiful 

 in the Firth : more males than females " ; but it is only in very 

 severe weather that I have ever found these birds ascending our River 

 Carron when still able there to find open reaches or spots of calm 

 water. On one occasion, I remember our keeper and myself shoot- 

 ing four out of five which were stalked when asleep on the ice at 

 the edge of a deep pool, and another time our obtaining a similar 

 number at the entrance of the Pow Burn, near Higginsneuk on the 

 Forth, opposite Kincardine on Forth. 



On the Carron Dams, close to this spot from whence I write, 

 " Tufted Ducks first appeared in any numbers about nine or ten years 

 ago" (say 1884 or 1885), as we are obligingly informed by Mr. 

 Robert Baillie, Manager's Department, Carron Iron Works (in lit. 

 i4th September 1895), and "one had been shot in the vicinity 

 some years previous." "A nest of eggs given to the late Dr. Leslie 

 of Falkirk 1 was taken in 1887. Since then I am aware of one 



1 This "clutch" is now in our collection at Dunipace, along with all Dr. 

 Leslie's local (Forth) collections, and his notes. 



