Transactions. 139 



specimens were observed in the neighbourhood of Criffel last 

 winter. 



Gullimots and young razorbills were exceptionally numerous 

 last winter. Mr Turner informs me that he has not known them 

 to be so plentiful for tlie last ten years. 



3.— Words, iieiv to me, collected fivm the Dumfriesshire Dialect 



during the last jo years. 



By Mr JAMES Shaw, Tynron. 



The collection of words which I present has been g-athered 

 together at intervals, as opportunity presented, or as curi- 

 osity stimulated. It is by no. means exhaustive ; indeed, I 

 believe that with attention the number of such words could 

 easily be doubled. It is strange how few of them are to be found 

 in the works of our more popular authors who have made us 

 acquainted with Scotch characters and manners. The percentage 

 of them in the " Waverley Novels " is only five, and there are 

 only two or three of them in the writings of Burns, and six or 

 seven in Eamsay ; none, I think, in Fergusson, while a very few 

 of them are found in Hislop's " Collection of Scottish Proverbs." 

 A few of them are in the writings of Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, 

 but here I have not had the advantage of consulting a vocabulary 

 to these works. The words here submitted may, to some extent, 

 have been known in Eenfrewshire, but they must either have 

 become obsolete before my day, or been current in the parts of it 

 away from those in which the first half of my life was spent. 

 Now, while Dumfriesshire dialect has introduced me to a great 

 many new words, it at the same time presents blanks by not con- 

 taining many old words familiar to me in childhood. Indeed, the 

 obverse side of the shield should contain a paper on words in 

 Renfrewshire new to a Dumfriesshire man. I fear, however, that 

 unless Avork of this kind is attended to at an early date the crop 

 will be a poor one. National education is upon us, and words not 

 in the English dictionaries are treated as so much base coin. 

 Powerful influences are at work in favour of the exclusive use of 

 reputable words, and one of the most powerful of all is the open 

 derision or suppressed laugh which assails the unfortunate indi- 

 vidual who trips in his talk, and substitutes a word from the native 

 Poric for one that has the patronage of the schoolmaster. It is 



