116 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vi. 



the spring drought drove them both away (the Pintails 

 having again appeared) by April 25th.* Three weeks 

 later (on May 14th) 1 observed single Wigeon-drakes, 

 fully adult, at two other loughs a few miles distant, and 

 half-assumed that their mates would then be incubating 

 close by. There were also at that date a pair of adult 

 Wigeon, besides two, if not three, Pochards, on Greenlee 

 Lough — the latter being the remnant of a pack of some 

 twenty-five which had wintered there. The two single 

 drakes first mentioned were never seen again, but those 

 on Greenlee all remained until Maj^ 22nd, and on the 

 28th I was assured bj' the keeper that they were still 

 there — he having seen the drakes of both species on 

 the previous day. A prolonged search that morning 

 however, revealed no sign of either, nor have they, 

 old or young, been seen since. The above dates, it will 

 be observed, are later than those at which both Wigeon 

 and Pochard breed just over the Border. Two separated 

 pairs of Pochard also remained on another Northum- 

 brian lough all through April and up to May 14th, 1912. 

 Since that date they have not been seen, though whether 

 gone right away, or lying perdus, is " not proven." 



In the above notes I have perhaps been uncon- 

 sciously preoccupied by my personal observations, but 

 must not overlook Mr. George Bolam's careful records on 

 the same subject. The evidence he adduces as regards 

 Wigeon breeding in Northumberland is strong ; yet 

 hardly, perhaps, conclusive. That respecting the 

 Pochard appears to me to amount to proof. The par- 

 ticular loughs mentioned (near Wooler) lie so near the 

 Roxburghshire stations already occupied by Pochard, 



* Tt may interest to add that though this small lough was all but 

 dried up in May, yet the subsequent heavy rainfall had completely 

 filled it up in Jiuie, and by the end of that month it was as big as in 

 mid-winter. All the reed-beds with their nesting-colonies of Black- 

 headed Gulls were submerged, and on June 28th, when Mr. Witherby 

 and T visited the lough, a solitary youngster appeared to be the only 

 survivor of the season's hatching. A single pair of Gulls had then 

 established a home, two miles away, on Broomlee Lough, where I had 

 never known them nest before. The same cause probablj' explained 

 an untimely Snipe sitting on four eggs at that late date. 



