312 The ScottisJt Naturalist. 



owing to the presence of a weasel, which was perambulating the 

 cliff and examining nest after nest. 



Wood Pigeon (Columba palundus). — When at Melrose on 

 May 1 2th, Mr. John Freer mentioned that on the previous day he 

 had shot six Wood Pigeons as they were returning from some 

 distance to the woods, and he found in their crops crumpled 

 leaves and a brown substance. These proved to be beech leaves 

 and their scaly covering. They had been cropped as the buds 

 were expanding. On Heddin Braes or Ilderton Hill, a most 

 retired spot, I found Cushats nesting not 4 feet from the ground 

 in low thorns, also in alders, and in juniper bushes, and even in 

 thickets of wild roses. The Chaffinch had also built its nest in 

 the lowly junipers. On June 5th, when proceeding to feed, they 

 flew mostly in threes. On the 9th of July, at Penmanshiel, a 

 band of Wood Pigeons set upon a thriving field of thinned 

 Swedish Turnips, and stripped the leaves off in three days. 

 March 1 9th I saw a pair of Cushats in a garden at Wooler, in 

 full view of the window, cropping the tops of cabbages among 

 the snow. They have been less numerous than usual this winter. 

 Mr. John Anderson mentions that, during the winter of 1874, a 

 white Wood Pigeon was seen among a flock of Cushats at Lint- 

 law. There was another for two or three years among the woods 

 on the Marigold hills, where it was a very conspicuous object, 

 when sitting on the top of a lofty spruce fir, a place it seemed 

 to delight in. Unfortunately in the spring of 1869 it was shot 

 by a crowherd. 



Qu ail (Coturnix vulgaris). — Recently Mr. Clark informed me 

 that Quails were not uncommon on Springfield farm, in the parish 

 of Oldhamstocks, and that they breed there. In the summer 

 evenings their call-note is a familiar sound coming from the grass 

 and com fields. Two nests have been cut over while mowing 

 hay ; there were about twelve eggs in the nest ; and these were 

 large for the size of the bird, and much resembled those of the 

 grouse. The birds arrive in May, and the impression is that 

 their flight is from the north, and that they are passing south- 

 wards. They fly rapidly, skimming off like a swallow, and 

 require to be shot at immediately they rise. They are occasionally 

 shot in the partridge season ; usually after the 7th October 

 on that farm. This being late several of the Quails may have 

 then departed. In 1874 five or six birds were shot ; in October 

 1875, two birds were started in a hedge between Branxton and 

 Thurston. In the summer one had been heard in a haugh on 



