4 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



Before pitching my permanent camp here in 1898, 

 I had, for more than a quarter of a century, occupied 

 shootings or fishing's at many diverse points upon the 

 Borders ; each point being a centre of observation for 

 the collation of the notes upon which this book is based. 



An initial difficulty in describing the bird-life of any given 

 area throughout the year is to decide at which point to 

 begin. New Year's Day suits human purposes well enough ; 

 but Nature provides no break in her cycle, and no single 

 point of time can be found at which her various operations 

 can start level. Hence, these chapters will necessarily 

 partake something of the character of those golden 

 serpents which one sees made into ladies' bracelets, and 

 which complete the continuity of their circle by taking a 

 large piece of their tails into their jaws. 



The opening months of the year are uninteresting and 

 uneventful on the moors. There is but little perceptible 

 change from the conditions which prevailed during 

 November and December ; and an outline of the orni- 

 thological features of those months will be found later 

 in this book. Hence there is but little attraction to 

 detain us till the advent of spring or of the vernal 

 influence, at which somewhat indefinite period these 

 notes will therefore commence. 



Springtide is a subject on which, from time im- 

 memorial, poets and those of vivid imagination have 

 delighted to descant. And, truly, there is a charm in the 

 idea of the rejuvenescence of all Nature's productions at 

 this season, when new life springs afresh in bird, beast, 

 and plant, which is generative of poetic instinct. Appre- 

 ciative and grateful as all must be for the sublimity of 

 thought developed in our classic poetry — a beauty of 

 expression which transcends all power of prose — still, as 



