BREEDING COLONIES OF THE BLACK-HEADED GULL 73 



and the high ground cxhove Redheugh. If Mr Muirhead was 

 aware of this when he wrote his Birds of Berwickshire, 

 he omitted to mention the fact, and Mr A. H. Evans makes 

 only a bare allusion to it in his Vertebrate Fauna of the 

 Tweed Area. The same spot is seldom resorted to for any 

 length of time, variations in the seasons and robbing of the 

 nests causing the birds frequently to change their quarters. 

 When I first visited the colony in May 1886, it was located 

 in the western section of the moors near the head of Dowlaw 

 Burn. Unfortunately I made no note of its strength, but 

 my recollection is that it was quite small anything from 

 twenty to forty pairs. About twenty years ago, I was shown 

 eggs that were taken " from a small colony in Coldingham 

 Moor" in May 1894. In June 191 5 Mr Harold Raeburn 

 reported to me a colony of " about fifty pairs " at a tarn on 

 Lumsden Moss, to the south of the Dowlaw Burn. On visiting 

 this guUery a few days later (i6th June) I estimated the 

 colony at not less than eighty pairs, probably more of the 

 birds being at home on that occasion. A dozen pairs or so 

 had nested, a shepherd told me, on Dowlaw Moss earlier 

 in the season, but being robbed of their eggs had left. 

 Prior to 1914 the main gullery was, he said, on " Old Cambus 

 Moss," but they deserted it that year and came to Lumsden 

 Moss, where they still have their breeding quarters. On 

 i6th May this year (1920) Mr Raeburn estimated the colony 

 at fully 150 pairs. It is difficult to trace the intricacies of 

 the watershed on these moors, but most of the nesting places 

 undoubtedly belong to " Forth " as now defined. 



Midlothian (Edinburghshire). 



No less than five gulleries, as detailed below, lie wholly 

 or partly within the boundaries of this county. The boggy 

 moors or "mosses," formerly much more extensive than 

 now, on the bleak uplands where Midlothian and Peeblesshire 

 meet, are probably among the oldest nesting haunts oi Larus 

 ridibundus in Scotland. 



Fala Moss or " F/ow,'' in the south-eastern part of the 



county, near the west end of the Lammermuir Hills. On 



this moor there is a small tarn, in the vicinity of which 



the Gulls are known to have nested for many years. The 



1 01 AND 102 K 



