5 



the position to do so, the wholesale destruction that has been going on 

 witli impunity for some years past may be very materially lessened, and 

 our birds in a great measure again restored — but more of this anon. 

 Though the ranks of both waders and swimming birds are so sadly 

 thinned to what they were forty or fifty years ago, yet I am happy to 

 say representatives of most of the species of former years still exist, 

 and when taken as a whole exhibit a goodly number, as will appear 

 when I mention that there are in all 77 species which are to be found 

 either as resident, migratory, or occasional on the Estuary. Of this 

 number 23 are waders and 54 swimmers, or, more properly speaking, 

 web-footed birds, as some of the Grallatores are by no means indifferent 

 swimmers, such as the Waterhen, Coot, Phalarope, and some others. Of 

 the resident birds, or those which remain with us generally the whole 

 season, excepting perhaps in severe winters, or retiring for a short time 

 in the breeding season, there are 24 — 11 being waders. Of the 

 migratory birds — in all 30 — the larger proportion are winter visitants, 

 amounting to 24, all being swimmers with the exception of 6, leaving 

 only 5 swimmers and 1 wader coming to us in summer. Of the 

 occasional visitants we have 23, if we include the Mute Swan and 

 the Egyptian Wild Goose. The former, though known to be wild in 

 Denmark and north-eastern Europe, is not usually considered so in this 

 country, and may, along with the latter — both of -which are occasionally 

 seen in severe winters on the estuary and other parts of the Tay — be 

 merely frozen-out domesticated birds. Of this last section, 5 only of 

 which are waders, I now propose treating ; but not to be too tedious, or 

 to take up your time unnecessarily, I will merely give you their names, 

 and as I go along touch only on those I may consider to be the more 

 interesting. Of occasionals, then, we have — 



1. Bittern. 9. Shoveller. 17. Puffin. 



2. Whimbrel. 10. Pintailed Duck. 18. Glaucous Gull. 



3. Sanderling. 11. King Duck. 19. Iceland Gull. 



*4. Turnstone. 12. Smew. 20. Pomatorhine Skua. 



5. Great Snipe. 13. Great Crested Grebe. 21. Richardson's Skua. 



6. WhooperorWildSwan 14. Horned Grebe. 22. Fulmar Petrel. 



7. Mute Swan. 15. Black Guillemot. 23. Storm Petrel. 



8. Egyptian Goose. 16. Little Auk. 



The first of these, the Bittern, one of the Ardeidae or Heron tribe, a 

 very fine specimen of which was shot in the spring of 1864 on the 

 Gutterhole fishing, near Newburgli, is now at Carpow House, where it 



* It is interesting to record that the young chicks of this species, a rare breeder 

 in this country, have been noticed at the mouth of the Tay by Mr Henderson, of 

 Dundee, but lie has not as yet had the good fortune to fall in with the eggs. 



