THE TUFTED DUCK IN SCOTLAND 15 



the hundreds. We have also visited Loch Leven in April, when the 

 numbers were also astonishing. Mr. Malloch speaks (in lit.) of 

 seeing "scores of broods," and also adds that in 1894 "there must 

 have been over 1000" (meaning thereby old and young birds, not 

 pairs). It matters little perhaps whose estimates are exact, 1000 

 as Mr. Malloch puts their numbers at, or 300 which represents Mr. 

 Evans's estimate, and it is perhaps sufficient for our purpose to 

 prove that Loch Leven is at all events, facile princeps, the greatest 

 centre of their present reproduction in Scotland. It should, how- 

 ever, be considered at the same time that Loch Leven, with scarcely 

 any doubt, becomes also a refuge owing to its great extent and 

 feeding qualities to many other broods not necessarily born on 

 its margins or on its islands ; and this might well favour the larger 

 estimate. 



The Tufted Duck has become established at a good many other 

 localities in Central and South Perthshire, and Mr. Rowley Jex 

 Long records a nest taken at Methven Loch three years after the 

 discovery recorded in the "Ibis," viz. in 1878 (" Proc. Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. of Glasgow," 25th February 1879). 



Mr. Malloch gives us (in lit. i3th September 1895), writing from 

 memory, a very similar account, but appears to claim earlier dates for 

 their first nesting at Methven Loch. All the evidence, however, points 

 to the "Ibis" record of 1875 as the undoubted first record for 

 Scotland. Mr. Millais first heard of their breeding in Perthshire 

 about the year 1877, and adds: "Mr. Malloch shot a pair (which I 

 saw) and took nest and eggs on Methven Loch, near Perth, about^this 

 date " ; and Colonel Drummond Hay, whom we look upon as the 

 best informed authority for " Tay," writes us as follows : " The first we 

 ever got were from the present Colonel David Smythe of Methven, 

 $ and ?, shot on Methven Loch, dated February 1878; these, I 

 think, were mounted for the Society by Malloch. All that we have 

 are winter birds a $> from Gask on the Earn, and a $ and ? from 

 Loch Tay, January 1880. The first nest (or I may say the only one, 

 for we would not have wished to take another) was from Methven 

 Loch, taken by Colonel D. Smythe, with eleven eggs, in weedy 

 ground among thick herbage, chiefly Carex rostrata, in June 1888." 

 Finally, in reply to our inquiry of Mr. R. Jex Long, that gentleman 

 writes us (5th December 1895): "Mr. Malloch was the party from 

 whom I received the Tufted Duck and eggs. They were got on 

 Methven Loch in a Swan's nest, and he said it was the only one he 

 had seen. I understood from him he had never previously seen or 

 heard of this species breeding in Scotland. The bird and eggs are 

 still in my possession." 



Perhaps our earliest record for its occurrence on inland waters 

 of the south-west of the county is that given by my friend Mr. 

 John Hamilton Buchanan in his paper " On the Birds observed at 



