The Scottish Naturalist. 7 



breeding season by egg-collectors, both there and on Tents Muir ; 

 and should there be no effort made to stop the practice, the Tern, 

 like many of the rest of our birds, will soon be a thing of the past. 

 In treating of the Golden Plover, I have already denounced 

 the wholesale depredation of eggs on the breeding-grounds of 

 Tents Muir ; but since that was written, the following has come 

 under ray eye, written by Mr Harvie-Brown, in the ' Proceed- 

 ings of the Nat. Hist. Soc. of Glasgow,' and which so corrobo- 

 rates my own statements, and so aptly fits in under the present 

 article, that I feel I cannot do better than copy it for the benefit 

 of my readers who may have any influence either in Dundee, 

 Leuchars, St Andrews, or elsewhere in the neighbourhood, to 

 put a stop to this infamous traffic : "The destruction of Terns' 

 eggs is really deplorable, besides that of almost every other 

 species which breeds on Tents Muir in Fife. Not for the 

 first time in his letters to me does Mr Henderson of Dundee 

 describe the awful mischief committed on this breeding-haunt 

 by boys who come out from Dundee and elsewhere and 

 harry the nests, and destroy wholesale all the nests they 

 come across. Mr Henderson states that the Terns are posi- 

 tively getting driven away by the continuous and wholesale 

 destruction of their eggs. In this case the Protective Acts are 

 a perfectly dead letter. The eggs are destroyed in thousands. 

 Terns, Ring Plovers, Dunlins, Lapwings, &c, are suffering 

 dreadfully. Scarcely a single bird gets flown ; and as for 

 Sheldrakes and Eiders, every egg is blown or boiled. Such 

 is the state of matters here, and I can substantiate every word 

 to be correct." Mr Harvie-Brown, commenting on the above, 

 adds, " Have we not a Society of Field Naturalists at Dundee? 

 I think so : and is it not part of their duty to try and prevent 

 this destruction ? It ought to be considered part of the duty of 

 every local Natural History Society to do so. Pressure should 

 be brought to bear on the magistrates, continued and repeated 

 until something is accomplished." 1 



Stercorarius pomatorhinus, Gould. (Pomatorhine Skua.) 



Stercorarius parasiticus, Gould. (Arctic or Richardson's 



Skua.) 



The autumn of last year (1879) w iU l° n » De remembered by 



1 Tents Muir is in the hands of three proprietors, who, I am sure, would 

 be willing to give every assistance were the matter taken up firmly by the 

 Dundee Natural History Society. — H. M. D. II. 



