272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



seen passing southwards on the west side of the Ehinns, and 

 steering at a considerable height in the air, with a strong and 

 steady flight, and with apparently no intention of halting until 

 their journey is accomplished. 



Looking to the fact that there are so many safe places of refuge 

 westward of our district, where the birds of the Hebrides assemble 

 during winter, we naturally do not look for many marine species 

 whose boundary line, so to speak, may be said to be north of the 

 Solway. The Scoters, for example, are almost wholly absent, and 

 we listen in vain for the wildly-musical call note of the long-tailed 

 duck — a species of constant occurrence Avithin the circle of the 

 inner islands. On the other hand, such birds as the quail, which 

 evidently come to us from the Irish coast, where they are taken 

 in some numbers, are familiar in almost every parish — their soft 

 and gentle note on dewy evenings being a well-known and 

 pleasing sound in the summer months. 



In conclusion, we may remark' that, contrasted with a county 

 like Aberdeenshire, which may almost be called the opposite 

 extreme of our district, there are many differences at once ap- 

 parent. Several North American Und birds and Waders, which 

 would seem to travel to this country via Greenland, Iceland, and 

 the Faroe Islands, and thence by Orkney and Shetland to the 

 outlying shoulder of Scotland represented in the shires of Banff 

 and Aberdeen, are never seen with us; while, as an offset to this 

 deficiency, we have large and interesting migratory flocks from 

 the central and western portion of our island lingering at the fall 

 of the leaf in our famed glens and valleys, and beside our brown 

 moors, ruined castles, and the banks of our brawling rivers, as if 

 telling us, in their changed notes of autumn, that they are reluc- 

 tantly preparing to quit our shores. 



It only remains to be added, that considerable care has been 

 bestowed in authenticating the information contained in this 

 catalogue. We have traversed a large extent of both counties in 

 quest of species, and have, for the last fifteen years, been almost 

 daily adding to our observations from which the short notes on 

 each of the birds have been selected. These jileasant rambles 

 and excursions, undertaken of late years for the twofold object of 

 investigating the ornithology and palnsontology of the glens and 

 hills of Ayrshire, have enabled us to give a somewhat accurate 

 idea of tlie species to be found within their boundaries. A con- 



