8o THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



endeavours have been made, I understand, to get rid of 

 the Gulls, and during the last year or two the number on 

 this ground has been small. This year they are said to have 

 increased again (over lOO pairs). 



SouTii-WEST Perthshire. 



East Flanders Moss^ i.e., Cardross and adjoining mosses 

 to the east of Menteith. For my present purpose it is not 

 necessary to mention in detail the various mosses over 

 which this colony is scattered. Taken as a whole it is 

 certainly one of the largest in Scotland. The breeding 

 station of Lainis ridibtindus alluded to in 1879 by Buchanan- 

 Hamilton in his paper on the Birds of Callander {Proc. Roy. 

 PJiys. Soc.) was, I believe, in this locality, and it is doubtless 

 in the main the " Flanders Moss " spoken of by Harvie-Brown 

 in 1884 (see above). On lOth May 1893, Mr Oswin Lee 

 saw hundreds of nests with eggs " on Flanders Moss near the 

 Lake of Menteith" {^Ainong BritisJi Birds in their Nesting 

 Haunts, part iii.). My acquaintance with the colony has 

 been too slight to enable me to speak of it with any degree 

 of exactitude ; but, from what I have seen and heard, I can 

 say that it has been a very large one for at any rate thirty 

 years in May 1896 I set it down at roughly 1500 to 2000 

 pairs. This is a large figure no doubt, but by no means too 

 high if local opinion counts for anything. Mr J. Kirkwood, 

 who was gamekeeper at Cardross from 1912 to 1919, tells me 

 the Gulls have not decreased but rather increased in recent 

 years. According to his estimates, the number nesting on 

 the various parts of the Moor, including Poldar Moss, totals 

 at the height of the season quite 2000 pairs. Beginning 

 about the 23rd of April the eggs, to the number at times of 

 600 or 700, were gathered every third or fourth day right on 

 to the beginning of June. When the nests had been robbed 

 a few times, the main colonies began to split up into smaller 

 groups occupying nine or ten spots scattered over the moor, 

 while others doubtless left it altogether. On Gartur Moss, 

 near the head of the Lake of Menteith, I have known 

 about 100 pairs to nest. 



LocJi Mahaick, about four miles north of Doune. I know 



