BurRNs AND MOFFAT. 169 
the other gentlemen who kindly allowed me a reading of their 
titles or gave me information about them. 
ANCIENT SANITATION. By Mr J. P. SHannon, A.R.S.I. 
In this paper Mr Shannon gave a succinct historical review 
of sanitation from its earliest practice, referring to the early 
ordinances relating to health recorded in sacred and profane 
works. He pointed out the great work done by the Romans, as 
revealed by their great Cloaca Maxima and other structures such 
as the great aqueducts and those in their colonies. He also 
referred to the use made of natural medicinal waters by the 
Romans. The science of hygiene formed the subject of another 
portion of the paper, and was dealt with on broad general lines. 
Notes ON Birp MIGRATION IN THE DISTRICT. 
Mr Robert Service contributed some valuable oral notes on 
the migration of birds in the district, of which he had recently 
made observation. One of the features of 1907 that would be 
remembered, he said, was the very striking fact that the birds 
made so extremely early an arrival from the south. There had 
already been recorded the unprecedented number of five species, 
all in before the end of March. The middle of April and 
onwards marked the average dates for the arrival of these birds in 
this district of Solway. The wheatear, the first of the five species 
to arrive, generally came in the closing days of March—mostly 
before March was quite out, but usually we were two or three 
days into April before there was a general appearance. This 
year many of them were seen along the Stewartry coast newly 
arrived on the 19th March, that is, a full week before the earliest 
of them were usually noted here. The ring ousel or mountain 
blackbird came first perhaps among the whole of our migrants 
to the hill country from the head waters of the Ken to Upper 
Annandale—a country which constituted the headquarters or 
metropolis of the mountain blackbird in the whole of Great 
Britain. It was a species which would linger very long in the 
winter months. Readers of White’s “Selborne ’’ would remem- 
ber how the old naturalist saw it at Christmas on Dartmoor. He 
_ (Mr Service) had many a time recorded its appearance in this 
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