GO TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



Such, then, is my list of the Plovers and their kindred that 

 I can give as species belonging to the Solway area. No 

 ornithologist may question their superiority as a group of birds, 

 whet her we look to their aggregate numbers, to their importance 

 as food (second only in this respect to the game birds them- 

 selves), to the spoil they afford, or, above all, to the interest 

 they have for 1 ho bird .student and the held naturalist. No 

 other group surpasses them in the extenl and regularity of their 

 migrations nor in the fastness of the flocks that perform these 

 travels. Though of real songs they have none, yet their voices 

 have a music in their wild and multitudinous Dotes that enthrals 

 the nature lover, attuned, as they are, to the murmur of the 

 waves and the threnody of the winds. 



A Campbeltown Palm-lily (Cordyline australis), 

 By Rev. David Landsborou^ii, LL.D. 



[Read 26th December, 1905.] 



The outstanding feature in the vegetation of tropical countries 

 is the Palm; in .sub-tropical it is the Palm-lily. In some, as in 

 parts of our own, several species of both grow together. This, 

 however, is only of recent years. The late Lady Campbell, 

 South Park, Campbeltown, had the honour of being the first 

 porson to plant a Palm-lily {Cordyline australis) in the open air 

 in Scotland. She was richly rewarded: the tree grew till it 

 became the amazement of all who beheld it. Looking at it, 

 one was ready to doubt if they were in cold Scotland, while 

 persons who had lived in Japan and similar countries were made 

 to feel as if they were in those countries again. It had been 

 planted in a most favourable spot, and it so grew in height as 

 t<> be taller than some species of Palm. Its canopy was specially 

 remarkable, and had a spread such as few species of Palm attain, 

 while the groal bunches of flower terminating its branches when 

 in bloom made a display such as the flowers of no true Palm 



