REPORT ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OP THE EAST OF SCOTLAND, 

 PROM PIFE TO ABERDEENSHIRE INCLUSIVE. 



Prepared for the East of Scotland Union of Naturalists' Societies. 

 Bv Col. H. M. Drummond Hay, C.M.Z.S. 



IN submitting the following report of the birds found in the 

 eastern counties of Central Scotland, which I do at the 

 request of the East of Scotland Naturalists' Union, it is hardly 

 necessary for me to say, that to confine such a report to a hard 

 and fast line of any particular county would not be giving a correct 

 view of the bird distribution of the district. To obviate this, I 

 have therefore adhered as much as possible to the several water- 

 sheds, as the great valleys, together with the headlands and coast- 

 lines, are considered by ornithologists to rule migration to a 

 large extent, and should, in drawing up such a fauna, be strictly fol- 

 lowed. Thus, to the North, that portion of Aberdeenshire com- 

 prised in the Buchan district, and which properly belongs to the 

 Fauna of the Moray-Firth, is kept separate from the Dee and Don 

 district, as also to the South, those portions falling within the 

 water-shed of the Forth are kept distinct from that of the Tay. At 

 the same time, I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to con- 

 form with the request made to me, in giving the individual faunas 

 of the several counties ; this is shown in the tables of distribution, 

 as well as in the notes and summary at the end, where particular 

 mention is made of the several species that have been found ex- 

 clusively in the Buchan and Forth districts. In the latter, to 

 avoid breaking the continuity between Perth and Fife, the inter- 

 mediate counties of Clackmannan and Kinross, together with the 

 small detached portion of Perth in the Culross district, have been 

 included in the tables under Fife. 



