f)6 Bir;i» No'i'Ks fhom Kskhalk. 



seen at one time during the Vole plague of 1876, and some years 

 ago one frequented the parish for a considerable time. I will 

 again refer to these birds when speaking of plagues. 



MERLIN HAWKS. 



These birds sometimes, but rarely, breed in the district, and 

 I never saw one till I came on a brood of young birds in a wild, 

 outlying part of the country, on the watershed between Dumfries- 

 shire and Roxburghshire. I was walking over the heights when 

 my attention was arrested by a iiawk rising close to me and 

 settling a few yards further on. On looking about me I saw 

 other four on the ground, and the parent birds having come on the 

 scene, I discovered they were merlins. The chance of procuring 

 a live specimen of such a rare bird was too good to lose. I 

 thought, as they apparently had very lately left the nest, that I 

 would have no difficulty in securing one ; but I was foiled in my 

 attempt, and in a very irritating way. Whenever I got close to 

 one of them and imagined I had only to put out my hand to seize 

 it, it rose up and flew about twenty yards only, carrying out the 

 same tactics over and over again. In my eagerness I com- 

 menced running, in the hope of tiring one of them out, but it 

 was they who tired me out, and I frequently fell down exhausted 

 in the act of stretching out my hand. After spending an hour 

 in this fruitless work, and considering tliat I had a rough walk of 

 twenty miles before me, I gave it up in despair, and my collection 

 remained minus a native specimen of a merlin hawk. 



KINGFISHERS. 



Within my remembrance a kingfisher was unknown on the 

 river, but now scarcely a season passes without one or two being 

 seen, though no nest has ever been discovered. 



NIGHT JAR. 



I have known of four specimens only in the neighbourhood ; 

 one was killed by a shooting tenant on the open moor at the head 

 of the parish. My brother saw one on the lawn at Castle O'er, 

 hayvking in the dusk, round a cherry tree. I myself saw one at 

 Castle O'er, sitting along the trunk of a fallen-down tree. These 

 birds sit lengthways on a branch or log, not across it — and one 



