» 



32 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



In Roxburghshire, the same remarks apply. Stock- 

 doves first nested there in 1882, and are now quite 

 common. There is a regular colony of them in the 

 Staerough crags, above Yetholm. In Berwickshire it first 

 appeared on Tweedside in 1877, according to Mr Muir- 

 head {Birds of Berwickshire, vol. ii., p. 141), and I have 

 heard its curious coo-ing note (more confluent, and scarce 

 so soft as that of the cushat) in the woods of Duns Castle 

 in that county. 



The advent of two other characteristic species 

 marks the progress of the year. The Redshank and 

 Black-headed Gull both appear in March — both to 

 form, for four months, conspicuous ornaments to the 

 moorland scene. The wild triple cry of the former 

 (often first heard at night) signalises his arrival ; he 

 follows the main " watergates," and never leaves the 

 lower levels: whereas the gulls pass on to seek high- 

 lying moorland loughs for their summer-homes. 



These gulls (Larus ridibundus), or at least the majority 

 of them, have not come far. Some, possibly, have 

 crossed the Bay of Biscay since the previous summer ; 

 but most, if my diagnosis be correct, have passed the 

 winter on our own shores, thus differing essentially 

 from the curlews and plovers, whose case has been 

 already defined. In winter, immense concentrations of 

 these gulls frequent the "slakes" and sandflats of the 

 north-east coast. One stormy winter's night, when 

 shooting on the sea, my puntsman and I both mistook, 

 amid driving snow and deepening gloom, one of these 

 assemblages for wigeon. While preparing to fire, our 

 punt took the ground forward and swung round on the 

 tide, obliging me to take the shot with a shoulder-gun. 

 Nineteen lay dead — not wigeon, but black-headed gulls. 



