THE TUFTED DUCK IN SCOTLAND 5 



These notes have enabled us to fill up many blanks and details of 

 dispersal, and we thank our friend for the use of them. 



We now take up the thread of our ascertained facts and the 

 actual increase and extension of range of the Tufted Duck. 



Beginning in the south of Scotland on the west side, records 

 do not take us very far back. In 1843 Jardine found it "only in 

 small parties together," and spoke of it in similar terms to other 

 earlier observers as appearing on fresh water only when the weather 

 was severe ("The Naturalist's Library," vol. xiv. p. 143). In 1887 

 Mr. Robert Service wrote (" Zool.," Sept. 1887) that he " very seldom 

 saw it previous to iSSo, and only in certain favoured localities," but 

 observed it " in small parties of half a dozen or more every winter 

 on almost all the lochs of this district." And further, Mr. Service 

 " cannot say that any corresponding increase in numbers has been 

 noticed on the Solway Firth. On the Kircudbrightshire Solway it 

 is very uncommon." 



On the south side of " Solway " we have the Rev. H. A. 

 Macpherson's account equally carefully given. By this latter it 

 appears that, while rarely seen upon the estuary before 1888 

 by punt-shooters, still the species had been admissible to the fauna 

 of Lakeland for " upwards of fifty or sixty years " as a winter 

 visitant. Since about 1888 or a little later, a gradual increase 

 appears to have taken place, and some evidence seems to have been 

 obtained of its nesting at an inland locality (Monkhill Loch) by 

 Rev. H. A. Macpherson himself ("Fauna of Lakeland," p. 287); 

 but up to the present time, as we are informed by him (in lit.}, it has 

 not been proved to breed there yet, "though," he adds, "it is very 

 likely to have bred in one or two quiet nooks." 



Mr. Service (op. cif.} continues: "Last year (i.e. 1886) I 

 observed two pairs of Tufted Ducks frequenting Lochrutton, a loch 

 a few miles west of Maxwelltown, during May and June. . . . On 

 the 23rd May of last year I saw a pair on Loch Ken. This year 

 there were three on Preston Merse, below Southerness, on i5th May, 

 and two pairs remained on Lochralton after the other species of 

 ducks Goldeneyes and Pochards and bulk of the Tufted Ducks had 

 left. These pairs appeared to be preparing to nest by the 24th, but 

 only one pair remained and did so, producing a brood of eight 

 young." Thus Mr. Service records the first known instance of the 

 species having bred in his district of Solway. 



Mr. R. H. Read tells us that he had for some years 1888 

 to 1891 inclusive considered the Tufted Duck a common breeding 

 species in suitable lochs in East Renfrewshire, e.g. the lochs 

 around Eaglesham, Mearns, and Neilston and that the keepers told 

 him they had first noticed that it remained to breed about four or 

 five years previous to 1894 (i.e. previous to Mr. Read's record in 

 "Annals of Scottish Natural History" in October 1894), say 1890. 



