4 
in summer; while among land birds it can still rank as occasional 
visitants both the golden and white-tailed eagles, the deserted 
eyries of which are yet shown to the inquiring visitor. The Great 
and Little Scaur, a small group of rocks situated near the 
entrance to Luce Bay, and about midway between the- Mull of 
Galloway and Burrow Head (the former headland itself being an 
extensive breeding place), are frequented by numbers of guille- 
mots, razor-bills, and puffins, etc., which incubate there as at 
Ailsa. These two breeding places, with many of the inland lochs, 
which are oceupied by the black-headed and lesser black-backed 
gulls, enable us to include a number of resident birds which 
other districts do not possess; and as a fair proportion of the rarer 
stragglers have appeared from time to time within our limits, the 
catalogue may be regarded as somewhat fuller than could be 
expected from a more central district, or even seaboard counties 
further north. 
The Solway Firth appears to lead some of the characteristic 
birds of the south towards the east, and thus forms a kind of 
barrier to their wanderings into Scotland by the shorter route of 
crossing the water; thus even species swift of wing, such as the 
black tern (Sterna nigra) and shoveller duck (Anas clypeata), 
travel eastwards, tempted by the inviting shores of the Solway, 
until they are gradually led through Roxburghshire into Berwick- 
shire, whence they speed northwards. We therefore find these birds 
appearing much more frequently in East Lothian and Fife, especi- 
ally in the vicinity of the rivers Tyne and Eden—these estuaries 
being sufficient to arrest them for a time in the course of their 
journey. The Ruff (Jachetes pugnax) is ancther example of the 
influence of the Solway in arresting, or rather diverting the 
direction of the flight of English birds. It is seldom or never 
found in Wigtownshire or Ayrshire, while it is tolerably common in 
the estuaries just named. We draw this inference advisedly, seeing 
that two of the species at least which we have mentioned are at 
times abundant in Lancashire. On the banks of the Ribble the 
ruff is plentiful, while in most of the meres, as the patches of fresh 
water there are called, the shoveller is equally numerous, as many 
as a dozen or fifteen specimens having been sent to the Preston 
bird stuffers in one day. 
As a post of observation for the migratory movements of birds 
from the remoter districts of western Scotland, the Mull of Gallo- 
