SUMMER ON THE MOORS 95 



summer is entirely overgrown with sedge, rush, and 

 aquatic plants, with tufts here and there of yellow 

 iris — an ideal home for shovelers, as well as for crakes, 

 rails, and even bittern, if one survive. 



Besides shovelers and numerous mallards and teal, 

 there were also nesting here, in 1906, some eight or ten 

 pairs of pochards. 



Whitrigg also possesses one of the most extensive 

 colonies of black-headed gulls, or "pickiemaws" as they 

 are called in Scotland. In July, every nook and corner of 

 mud and ooze, each creek and inlet, was crowded with 

 young gulls in all stages from tawny down-clad to strong 

 fliers ; and amidst the mob, swam (at thrice their speed) 

 broods of the various ducks aforesaid, while the air 

 above was rent with vociferations. 



Black-headed gulls are even more numerous on the 

 Scottish side than in Northumberland, nesting both on 

 moor and merse. Indeed, all along the lovely vale of 

 Tweed, they become quasi-domestic ; hawking for moths 

 in the cottagers' gardens in every hamlet around "fair 

 Melrose," St Boswells, Dryburgh, and all that storied land. 



On Greenlaw moor, south of the Lammermuirs, are 

 two wild sheets of water known as Hule moss, where 

 various ducks also nest. On the larger loch (near 

 20 acres), there were, among others, three or four pairs 

 of pochards ; while the smaller and more rush-grown 

 loch, attracts shovelers. Here, on July 10th (1906), we 

 counted nineteen mallard ducks, with never a drake nor 

 a brood among them all. These, together with many 

 grouse and other moor birds, had lost their broods 

 during the disastrous floods and snowstorms of the 

 preceding May. The drakes (in eclipse) kept separate. 



There is an obvious difficulty in dealing with the duck- 



