The Scottish Naturalist. 295 



NOTES ON THE BIEDS OF THE BASIN OF THE TAY 



AND ITS TKIBUTAEIES. 



By Colonel H. M. DRUMMOND HAY, C.M.Z.S., B.O.U., &c. 



{^Continued from p. 255.) 



84. Palumbus torquatus, Gould. (Wood-Pigeon.) 



TH E Wood-Pigeon abounds more or less throughout the whole 

 district, often doing, in the more agricultural parts, much 

 damage to the farmer, which, however, is in some measure com- 

 pensated by the good effected in a vast consumption of seeds of 

 the most noxious weeds. Though large quantities of these birds 

 are annually destroyed, there seems to be no perceptible decrease 

 in their numbers, owing to accessions from the Continent, from 

 whence they are known to reach our shores in large bodies every 

 year. During the harvest months great numbers are shot on the 

 tidal banks of the Tay between Newburgh and Perth, where, among 

 the coarse herbage commonly known as salt-grass,^ certain spots 

 are cleared in the probable line of flight of the birds to the corn- 

 fields, and on these are set up two or three stale-birds. The 

 gunner,^ concealed behind a screen of reeds and debris^ is thus 

 enabled, should the day be favourable and the birds flying well, 

 to keep up a pretty constant fusilade, until driven from his post 

 by the rising tide. As nearly every bird crossing the river, or fol- 

 lowing its course, naturally pitches to the stale-birds, it is imme- 

 diately shot, then, propped up between two sticks, becomes in 

 its turn a decoy to the next passer-by. In this way a sack-load 

 is often secured in a single tide. 



85. CoLUMBA GENAS, Linn. (Stock-Dove.) 



The Stock-Dove, though exceedingly rare, may perhaps now 

 be justly included among the birds of the district, it having been 

 found breeding in the vicinity of Dunkeld, by Mr Brooke. This 

 bird has also been seen by myself, in the Carse of Gowrie ; and 

 from the vicinity and time of year in which a pair were noted, 



1 Chiefly composed of reed meadow-grass {Glyceria aqiiaticd) and reed 

 canary-grass {Digraphis anindmacea), interspersed with sea club-rush {Sci)-- 

 pus maritiimis). 



2 Some one of the professionals, generally Newburgh men, who gain their 

 livelihood on the river by shooting wild-fowl in winter, and varying their 

 occupation in summer by getting Wood- Pigeons and catching Eels for the 

 Dundee and London markets. 



