THE BARN OWL. 281 



resort, and here, Mr. Douglas, banker, Coldstream, informs 

 me he remembers it nesting fifty years ago, when he was 

 a boy. Miss Georgina Milne-Home, Milne Graden, speaks 

 of its appearance at the same rocks at a much later date ; ^ 

 and, about twenty years ago, when a party of crow-shooters 

 rowed up the Tweed to the Scarsheugh rocks, to shoot the 

 wild dovecot Pigeons found there, the firing of the guns 

 caused several "White Hoolets " to come out of the crevices, 

 which are now only inhabited by Jackdaws, Starlings, and 

 Pigeons.'-^ Mr. J. Speedy states that the Barn Owl used to 

 breed in a quarry by the side of the Tweed at Ladykirk, 

 when he lived there, upwards of twenty years ago ; and it is 

 also said to have formerly reared its young in the rocks by 

 the side of that river, near Birgham.^ 



About thirty years ago, this Owl nested annually in 

 the " Pigeon Eock " on the north bank of the Whitadder at 

 Edrington Castle ; and young men from the adjoining village 

 of Paxton were sometimes lowered over the cliff to get the 

 Owlets when they were nearly fledged, for the purpose of 

 keeping them as pets.* " Hoolet's Craig," on the Whitadder, 

 near Cockburn, opposite the Staneshill, would appear to 

 have been at one time a home of this bird, and there are 

 other rocky precipices which would doubtless be frequented 

 by it. Mr. W. Duns, builder. Duns, says that he recollects 

 a pair of Barn Owls occupying a hole left for scaffolding in 

 the wall of Duns Town Hall when it was built (about 1821), 

 so common was the bird at that time. 



A favourite haunt on the Blackadder, about thirty years 

 ago, was the steep rock below the Conservatory at Black - 

 adder House : and here the " White Hoolet " used to be seen 



1 In letter to me dated 9tli January 1886. 



2 Verbal information from Mr. James Pm-ves, gamekeeper, Morilinglon. 



3 Mr. George Bolam, Ber^vick-on-Twced, J/*S'. Nvtc. 



* Verbal information from Mr. Robert Dalgleish, Paxton. 



