AND ANGLING SONGS. 387 



picking up a few salmon fry is insignificant. Whether the birds 

 belonging to this locality are attached to any heronry is a ques- 

 tion. There are three communities of this kind that I know of 

 in Roxburghshire. That the visitors I speak of, if belonging to 

 any of these, do not regularly wend their way home at dusk, but 

 take up night quarters in the neighbourhood of their daily haunts, 

 I have every reason to think, having observed them, more than 

 once, settle down, three or four together, as if for this purpose, 

 after sunset, on the trees in Floors Park. 



EPIGRAM. 



TEVIOT a river is that lives by Rule, 



And scorns all guidance from your sage Ulysses ; 

 But takes its ruddy Ale before its Kale, 



And with a merry mouth fair Anna kisses. 



The mischief done by the black-backed and common gulls to 

 the parr-stock, at a certain period of the year, is no doubt con- 

 siderable. Both are greedy birds, but the lesser is the more 

 voracious of the two ; and in consequence of its greater abun- 

 dance and fearlessness when at feed on our rivers, the more 

 destructive. The ravages, however, committed by the gulls are 

 to some extent compensated, as in the case of the heron, by the 

 delight which every one receives from watching their motions. 

 As well as to the salmon fry, the large black-backed gull is a 

 formidable enemy to the common fresh-water trout. I recollect, 

 two or three years ago, having my attention directed to an indi- 

 vidual of this species, which had just made seizure of a trout, to 

 all appearance fully half a pound in weight. Instead of swallow- 

 ing it, as he would probably have done had his prize been a parr 

 or smolt, without quitting the water, he took wing, holding the 

 fish in his bill, and alighted near the opposite bank in a shallow 



