78 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



scarcely thirty pairs, and this year there are still fewer. 

 When I called on Mr White on 14th May he had not 

 heard of a single nest, and I could only see four or five 

 Gulls anywhere near the reservoir, the water level of which 

 was unusually high, and the island in consequence very 

 small. Dr Eagle Clarke, who landed on the island three 

 days later, reports about a score of new nests, one of which 

 contained a single egg. Perhaps this decrease has some 

 connection with the increase at Threipmuir, which is only 

 about five miles to the east. As Harperrig is not far from 

 Kirknewton I presume it was at this gullery that the 

 Cumberland ringed bird referred to in the Scottish 

 Naturalist for 191 6 was found. 



Simultaneously with the decrease at Harperrig, a colony 

 established themselves, Mr W. F. Little writes me, on Bawdy 

 Moss, about two miles south of Crosswood Reservoir ; " they 

 were prospering exceedingly when the Tarbrax miners 

 discovered them," and so completely were they harried the 

 last two years that they almost all left. 



Cobbinshaw Reservoir, in the south-west of the county 

 where it marches with Lanarkshire. The gullery is at the 

 swamp where an island has formed in the south-western 

 part of the reservoir. On ist June 1883, the keeper at the 

 reservoir told me he had taken 150 dozen eggs off the island 

 that year, and on 26th April 1884 I learned from him that 

 he had gathered six dozen on the i6th of the month and 

 seven dozen that morning. The Gulls were certainly at that 

 time very numerous ; my note on the latter occasion is, 

 "quite 1000 birds (say 500 pairs) and still increasing." In 

 April 1905 they were again noted as abundant, but in recent 

 years a marked falling off in their numbers has taken place 

 in the interests of the fishing they are not encouraged, though 

 the value of the eggs is not disregarded. On 19th May 1919 

 I estimated the colony at from 200 to 250 pairs at most. ^ 



West Lothian (Linlithgowshire). 



Hillhouse Moor, north-west of Armadale, The nesting- 

 place is a small tarn studded with tufts of rushes and sedges. 



^ There is a large colony near Auchengray (Clyde) not far off. 



