The Tufted Duck in Scotland. 157 
latitude ; or, in other words, whence did we draw our earlier 
pioneers? Did they come to our shores first in winter 
or autumn, from congested areas of occupation in Central 
or Eastern Europe, and Asiatic sources south of the great 
isothermal line? or from more northern extensions of their 
Continental range—say from the later qualified and more 
lately populated areas in Lapland and the eastern portions of 
Northern Scandinavia? or, as some seem to believe, direct 
from the thinly populated areas of the western watershed of 
Northern Norway? How does it happen that Heligoland 
seems to remain almost entirely unvisited? Why is our 
Moray basin almost a blank, as also Ferée and the Outer 
Hebrides, and the west coasts of both England and Ireland ? 
How has Caithness become populous—perhaps second in 
importance to Loch Leven only, and to the areas of Tay and 
Forth on the north side of the latter? Why have the whole 
areas of Moray and the fringing counties of the south side of 
the Firth of Forth been so long delayed in receiving a share 
of the wanderers? Why has Tiree yielded first record of its 
nesting anywhere north of Clyde in the west? Now,’ 
England bears the earliest group of dates, and that in Not- 
tingham (1849 to 1851, to 1854), and in Norfolk again in 
1873. In the latter county, as Mr J. H. Gurney informs us, 
“steadily holding its ground in suitable places in West Nor- 
folk; but,” he adds, “they have not extended to the ‘ Broads’ 
on the east side of our county” at the present time. I 
would ask, Why is this? Are the “ Broads” less suitable ? 
In Ireland, again, the earliest known nests appear to have 
been recorded between 1875 and 1882; but it also appears 
that no “ vast increase” has taken place anywhere, although 
the quantities of birds seen in autumn and winter and 
spring are large enough. Irish naturalists allow that want 
of systematic observation may partly account for paucity of 
records, and the “ beginnings of its increase” may therefore 
have been overlooked. 
On the north-west coasts and Lake District of England, or 
south of the Solway, it is not even yet proved to have nested, 
and the late date of 1888 is given as its early appearance on 
the Firth; but, on the other hand, Wigtown and Renfrewshire, 
VOL. XIII. M 
