58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



IL — Sketch Palmer on the Birds of Loch Lomond and Neighbourhood. 

 By Mr James Lumsden, F.Z.S. 



Those parts of the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling which 

 are drained by the streams flowing into Loch Lomond, are rivalled 

 by few places in Scotland as a varied ornithological field. There 

 are not many districts of the same extent which can boast of such 

 a long list of species, some of which have been met with in no 

 other part of Scotland. Yet, with the exception of a list of the 

 birds of the parish of Luss in the " Statistical Account of Scotland," 

 1790, and Mr Eobert Gray's excellent list of the more interesting 

 birds of Loch Lomond,* little or nothing has been written on the 

 bird life of the district. 



The Golden Eagle may still, although rarely, be seen in the 

 district, and in 1872 it nested within ten miles of the loch. Not 

 very many years since the Osprey used to nest in tlie old castle of 

 Inch Galbraith, and the Kite in Kenmore Wood. The high rocks 

 of Inch Tavannach are now the nesting place of Kestrels and 

 Jackdaws, and often a pair of Barn Owls j while in the woods on 

 the border of the loch and neighbouring hills, the Sparrow-hawk 

 builds in considerable numbers, their old nests being often 

 occupied the second year by the Long-eared Owl. 



All the streams and mountain burns are enlivened by the 

 Dipper — or " Water Craw," as it is called in the district — that 

 bird of perpetual motion. 



The wooding round the loch is a favourite resort of many of 

 the warblers. The Grasshopper Warbler has been taken in 

 Kenmore Wood ; and the Sedge Warbler, AVhitc-throat, Wood 

 Warbler, and Willow Warbler, are not uncommon. The common 

 Jay is met with here also ; the banks of Loch Lomond being one 

 of the few places wdicre the species can still be called plentiful in 

 Scotland, t 



Among the heather and ferns on some of the hills, the Night-jar, 

 Goat-sucker, or Fern Owl — by any of which names it is known — 

 is sometimes observed ; but its nest is not easily found, the eggs 

 being laid on the ground without any proper nest. 



* Zoology of the Banks of Loch Lomond .and its vicinity, by Eobert Gray, 

 contained in Maclure and Macdonald's " Guide to the Trossachs and Loch 

 Lomond." Glasgow, 1864. 



t " Scottish Naturalist." Vol. iii., p. 236. 



