GOOSANDER AND MERGANSER IN THE FORTH AREA 107 



and R. Adam found a nest in a rabbit-hole on the south 

 side of Loch Achray, Trossachs ; it contained nine eggs 

 enveloped in pale grey down. The only egg taken was 

 generously presented to me. At Loch Ard a nest with 

 three eggs was discovered on 29th April 191 1 ; and at the 

 Lake of Menteith on 23rd May of the same year I came 

 suddenly upon a beautiful drake beside the wooded prom- 

 ontory near the heronry — from the great anxiety he 

 displayed I felt sure he had a mate on her nest in one 

 of the numerous holes among the tree-roots in tlie vicinity. 



In the case of the Red-breasted Merganser {J\Iergus 

 serrator') as a breeding bird in the Forth area, a similar 

 state of matters exists. Records in this magazine of a brood 

 seen in 1916 on Loch Lubnaig, and of others in 1917 on 

 Loch Ard and at Aberfoyle, are all that Misses Baxter 

 and Rintoul cite for the area. In the following notes 

 evidence is brought forward to show that the species nested 

 in the second of these localities all but fifty years ago, and 

 that there is actually a published record of its having done 

 so on a loch in the east of Stirlingshire at an even earlier 

 date. This latter record is by Harvie-Brown, and appeared 

 in his " Collected Observations on the Birds of Stirlingshire," 

 published in the Zoologist for 1867 : it is in the following 

 terms : — " Breeds on Loch Lomond, and I once only found 

 the nest on Loch Coulter." 



Loch Ard, in south-west Perthshire, has been a known 

 summer resort of the Merganser for many years, but some- 

 how the fact, so far as I am aware, has never, prior to 1917, 

 got into print. From an old note-book I find that on 

 1 2th May 1873 Mr Stirling of Garden found a nest of this 

 duck on an island in that beautiful loch, and that one 

 of the eggs was afterwards given to Mr Oswin Lee. In 

 December 1S85 Mr Hamilton Buchanan told me he had 

 seen eggs of the Red-breasted Merganser from Loch Ard, 

 and he added, " it also breeds on the Lake of Menteith." 

 In 1896 Mr Lee informed me that two pairs frequented 

 Loch Ard, and two years later he showed Mr H. Raeburn 

 eggs from one of the small islands there. Writing in 1897 

 or thereby, in his book Ai!io7ig BritisJi Birds in their Breeding 



