The Tufted Duck in Scotland. 151 
There are, however, other equally suitable sheets of water 
as yet entirely unoccupied, and which must be for the present 
considered to be too far to the right or left of the main lines 
of the “general migration” flights, or of too difficult access. 
Of these, I may instance most prominently Loch Spynie, 
and many other lochs within the Moray Basin Watershed. 
I have not a single undoubted record of its nesting any- 
where within this huge natural faunal area, up to the date of 
going to press, and this, as my readers will find, long after 
Caithness centre became populous, and long after Loch Leven 
“swarmed” with them. It appears to me that Moray is one 
of those curious blank spaces, so to speak, as regards this 
species, which Palmén refers to as lying “between the 
routes,” and it is scarcely less curious to find, that the 
slopes which face the south and south-east, and are thus 
more easily accessible to birds approaching from an easterly 
or south-easterly direction, are at the present time mostly 
preferred on the East Coast of Scotland and England ; while 
such as are on the north sides or face the west and south- 
west, or are most easily approached from the south-west, are 
witnesses to earlier occupation on the West Coast, though 
not so early as those upon the East Coast; or otherwise, 
the autumn flights are brought up by the suitable feeding 
or nesting haunts when pursuing their course across Scot- 
land from north-east to south-west; «¢., ¢f such flights take 
place at all, even across our lowest watersheds, in normal 
conditions of weather, a possibility I cannot say I distinctly 
realise at present. 
The argument that more suitable localities happen to 
occur on these slopes facing the south-east than on those 
facing the north, may be partly a reason for their later 
occupancy of the latter, but is insufficient in itself, I 
consider, to account for this partiality. If there were no 
other reasons influencing dispersal, how can we account 
for such a rule being broken in the vastly favourable 
areas of the Moray Basin, west of the dividing mountains 
between “Dee”, and “ Moray,” as shown by our present 
statistics ? 
I now come to consider such side lights as may be 
