Transactions. 71 



a bird's claw. Uncommon on the east coast. 

 Pyrola minor. Fir wood on Bamhourie. 

 media. Found flowering beautifully on the southern 



slope of Whitehill by Mrs Latham some years ago. 

 Sedum anglicum. Common. 

 a^re. Blackneuk, &c., but not abundant on the west 



coast. 

 Viola lutea. Hills near Barnbarroch. 

 Ulex nanus. Abundant on the hills. 



There are found in the parish 18 Ferns indigenous. 



Of the Mosses, Lichens, Algae, and Fungi I cannot speak, 

 as I am not acquainted with these divisions or departments, 

 but I have no doubt that in some of them the parish of 

 Colvend will be found to be equally rich. 



Notes on Birds. Taken in 1864, at Mountainhall, 



A MILE EAST FROM DUMFRIES. By ThOMAS AiRD. 



I AM not a naturalist, in the usual sense of the term ; but I 

 take a living interest in the characters, habits, and fortunes 

 of my country neighbours, the birds. From Loch Skene and 

 the high Moffat range, down to the shores of the Solway, 

 where we have a fair proportion of the sea-birds, Dumfries- 

 shire, being well varied of cultivated fields, pastoral solitudes, 

 hills and valleys, woodlands and rivers, moors and mosses, has 

 a correspondingly varied wealth of birds. New discoveries 

 of a decisive kind are hardly now to be expected, still fresh 

 points may be found out from time to time. For instance, 

 we have ascertained in this district lately that the Siskin, 

 which was long thought by naturalists not to breed in this 

 country at all, breeds in that large fir wood at Dalswinton 

 and in the woods of Shambelly. Light is still to be thrown 

 on other points of the kind ; and it is one function of our 



