114 THE MEADOW PIPIT. 



heights of the Lammermuir Hills. My friend Mr. Hardy- 

 has sent me the following lines on the Lady of Gamelshiels/ 

 in which reference is made to its desolate haunts : — 



That scene is altered now and gone, 



There desolation dwells ; 

 But still the stone on the moorland lone 



The mournful story teUs. 

 There frequent now, on the wilds forlorn, 



Wakes the Pipit's eerie trill ; 

 And the Curlew's call, at eve and morn, 



Is clamorous and shrill. 

 Oh woe ! oh woe ! to Gamelshiels Tower, 



Oh woe ! both night and day ; 

 For the fairest flower in the forest bower 



Is vilely snatched away. 



The Meadow Pipit is almost wholly migratory in Berwick- 

 shire, generally arriving on the sea-coast in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cockburnspath and Oldcambus in March, and 

 spreading over the higher grounds in April. It may be 

 observed frequenting bean stubble and turnip fields in 

 the lower parts of the county in September and October, 

 and shortly afterwards it leaves us for a milder climate,^ 

 but a few may be sometimes found throughout the winter 

 in sheltered localities. During the severe snow-storm of 

 December 1874, I observed several frequenting the marshy 

 ground near the mouth of the Whitadder ; and one day about 

 the middle of the same month in 1878, when curling at 

 Foulden, I saw one enter the house where the curling- 

 stones were kept, for shelter. The poor bird soon became 

 unable to fly from the .biting cold, and was found dead 

 when we took our curling-stones into the house in the 

 evening. 



1 Gamelshiels is in the Lammermuirs, near Millknowe. The Lady was killed 

 by a wolf. See Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, vol. iv. p. 291. 



2 Mr. Seebohm says that in autumn vast numbers pass along our eastern and 

 southern coast, evidently on their migration southwards.— Seebohm, Hist. Brit. 

 Birds, vol. ii. p. 226. 



