39O AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



ousel, and the wag-tail, are everyday objects of attraction. 

 Occasionally a kingfisher darts before us, scarcely giving time 

 for recognition before it has passed, like a meteor, out of sight. 

 In the covers and coppices, besides the warblers, abound the 

 several varieties of wrens and torn-tits native to Scotland ; also 

 the creeper or smaller woodpecker, yellow-bunting, etc. The 

 bird, however, which of late years has been most on the increase, 

 is undoubtedly the starling, a nest of which, containing eggs or 

 fledglings, was held, not very long ago, as a great acquisition, 

 whereas now-a-days nearly every veteran tree in the vicinity of 

 Kelso is appropriated, during the breeding season, by one or 

 more of these new settlers. Among the rarer birds which have 

 been shot within memory in this quarter, may be mentioned the 

 great northern diver, a specimen of which was killed in 1819 on 

 the Teviot close to Roxburgh Castle ; the osprey, or fishing-hawk, 

 shot on the banks of the Tweed, near Makerston, about four 

 years ago ; the honey-buzzard, killed at Newton Don in 1864 ; 

 the tippet-grebe, killed at Maxwheel about eighteen years ago ; 

 the stormy petrel, found dead in the manse-garden at Hownam 

 in 1825 ; the red-throated diver, shot on a pond not far from 

 Coldstream ; the cross- bill, male and female, shot near Jedburgh 

 about ten years ago ; the great bittern, shot on a pond near the 

 Hirsel, in Berwickshire, in 1837 ; the Egyptian goose, male and 

 female, shot by his Grace the Duke of Roxburghe in Floors 

 Park in 1857 ; the hoopoe, killed at Maxwheelheugh in 1859 ; 

 the Bohemian chatterer, or wax-wing, male and female, shot at 

 Stoneridge, Berwickshire, about ten years ago ; the rose-coloured 

 ousel, killed at Lady-Kirk, Berwickshire, about fifteen years 

 ago ; the greater spotted woodpecker, killed at Minto ; the lesser 

 spotted ditto ; the goat-sucker, shot at Springwood Park ; the 

 Barnacle goose at a loch near Ruberslaw ; a brace of quails at 

 Caverton-Edge. 

 In accounting for the increase of birds of all sorts, the snipe 



