THE TUFTED DUCK IN SCOTLAND 19 



MORAY BASIN. 



Coming now to our area of the "Moray Basin," i.e. north of 

 the great dividing range of the Cairngorm Mountains, and east of 

 the watershed between Dee and Ythan and Don and Moray, we 

 find a strange and perhaps unaccountable blank in the history of 

 the species, and the positive records of presence, even in winter, 

 strangely deficient in number. Throughout the whole area of the 

 Moray Basin the scarcity is quite phenomenal. But as early as 

 1860 Captain Dunbar Brander, of Pitgaveny obtained a stray 

 specimen on Loch Spynie in December, and again in 1878 

 he got another during very severe weather, and another in 

 February 1880. The Tufted Duck has never, to Captain Dunbar 

 Brander's knowledge, bred on Loch Spynie. Now, going further 

 back, St. John ("Nat. Hist, and Sport in Moray," ed. of 1872, D. 

 Douglas, Edinburgh, p. 136) says it "is rare" and "the Tufted 

 Duck is wholly a winter visitor," and no other reference is made to 

 the species ; and Dr. Gordon in his "Fauna of Moray," in the 1889 

 edition, which was published in Elgin, and contains appendices to 

 date, only quotes the above records of Captain Dunbar Brander 

 (pp. at. p. 53, footnotes). 



Also Mr. J. G. Millais writing to Buckley (7th September 1895), 

 says : " I do not know any place where the Tufted Ducks breed in 

 Morayshire or Nairn, though I strongly suspect it is doing so on the 

 Loch of the Clans an ideal duck place on Kilravock near Fort 

 George. Close to this there is a small open sheet of water known as 

 Loch Flemington. On this lake I killed several, both old and young 

 (only recently able to fly), in the autumn of 1891 ; so I suspect they 

 breed somewhere near, particularly so as I know Pochards breed on the 

 Loch of the Clans. I never could understand why Tufted Ducks do 

 not breed on Loch Spynie, but I know they do not." Later, how- 

 ever, we again hear from Mr. Millais, in addition to the above, that 

 though he has punted regularly in the Moray Firth, it is of com- 

 paratively rare occurrence there, and he also has been unable to 

 make out that it has positively bred anywhere in Moray. Our own 

 notebooks and MS. of our forthcoming volumes on the Moray fauna 

 entirely bear this out ; and Mr. M'Leay designates it as of rare 

 occurrence, and only very seldom sent into his hands. With 

 the few exceptions we will presently mention, we have never met 

 with the bird during twenty years' or nearer thirty years' experience 

 of Scotland north of the Grampians, nor anywhere within the whole 

 area of the Moray Basin. The exceptions are : we have once met 

 with a small party of Tufted Ducks close to the watershed of West 

 Ross, viz. upon Loch Gown, and the Rev. H. A. Macpherson 

 affords us the information also that he has seen it " on one of the 

 lochs between Strome Ferry and Dingwall" in September 1895. 



