170 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



suitable localities on that estate during the shooting season 

 down to about the year 1873; that two or three brace were 

 sometimes killed in a day ; that the greatest numbers he had 

 seen killed in a day were four brace ; and that the farms on 

 which the bird was most plentiful were the Dindinnies, which 

 are situated about midway between Lochryan and the Irish 

 Channel, and Kirronrae and Salchrie which adjoin Lochryan. 

 The soil on these farms is principally of a gravelly or sandy 

 character. Mr. Samuel Wither, farmer, Craigochpark, Port- 

 patrick, informs me that when his father was tenant at 

 Duchra the bird was common on the farm, and that numbers 

 were shot every winter during the years of the bird's plenty. 

 And Mr. Halliday, gamekeeper, Corsewall, Kirkcolm, says 

 that, from information obtained by him, the bird was common 

 in that parish thirty-five or forty years ago, and that two or 

 three brace had then been killed in a day by a shooting party. 

 Another haunt was the sharp gravelly ground to the south 

 and west of Stranraer, within a radius of a mile and a half of 

 the town. 



In the last twenty to twenty-five years, however, the bird 

 has been almost unknown in the district. I have not been 

 able to fix the exact years in which the diminution began, 

 but it was somewhat sudden, and the disappearance has been 

 so complete that I have only been able to get a few records 

 of the bird since the time when it practically ceased to 

 inhabit the district. Mr. Weir, gamekeeper, Lochnaw (who 

 succeeded Mr. Martin), has seen two during the last ten years, 

 both on the farm of High Mark, Leswalt. The Logan 

 gamekeeper informed me that the last Quail killed there was 

 about thirteen years ago. The last bird seen by Mr. Skinner 

 was on the farm of Culmore, Stoneykirk, in the year 1889. 

 Mr. Martin heard and saw some in 1887, on the farms of 

 Blair and Kilhilt in Stoneykirk. Mr. Marchbank, gamekeeper 

 on the extensive Estate of Lochinch, informs me that a young 

 bird was killed on the farm of Clenry in the parish of Inch 

 in October 1890, and that this was the only one seen by him 

 during the ten years of his residence at Lochinch. And in 

 November of last year a bird was flushed out of a turnip- 

 field on the farm of Kirklauchlan, Stoneykirk, which adjoins 

 the Irish Channel. One of the strongest pieces of evidence, 



