136 Birds that are Land and Water Feeders. 



their white bodies. When the wind blows strongly they fly 

 lower, and if battling- against a gale they twist and turn and 

 heat to windward much as will a fore and aft sailing craft. 

 For perhaps an hour the procession lasts, with scarcely a 

 break. The flocks — 20, 50, or 100 — follow each other closely, 

 all keeping to established lines of flight, which are probably 

 the same to-day as they were when Dumfries first became a 

 town. 



Not only down the valley of the Nith does this daily 

 flight occur, but down every valley leading to the sea, and 

 where the land is flat there are still immemorial flight lines 

 used by these birds. 



The afternoon flight is probably known to everyone who 

 knows the shore, but it may be pointed out that each morning 

 at daylight the same procession may be seen, but wending its 

 way inland instead of seawards. 



This huge army invades the land daily and its object is 

 food. That is to say, that the land is feeding many, many 

 hungry mouths besides what it must yield to man. Later I 

 will go into details, but just now I want you to realise that if 

 100 birds consuming 3 oz. of food a day (estimated) consume 

 within a few pounds of seven hundredweights in a year, the 

 gulls of Dumfries and Galloway must take some hundreds of 

 tons of food in a year. Please note that this is only the gulls. 

 If you consider the other birds and creatures feeding off the 

 land, you may be inclined to ask whether, after all, man gets 

 the larger share. 



Perhaps you will say — " Yes, this is all very well, but 

 do not forget that a great part of this food is of no value to 

 man ; and more than that, it is to man's advantage that much 

 of it is consumed." I have not forgotten. That is precisely 

 what I wish to go into, but before doing so I wish to point 

 out that this hungry army of birds (not gulls only) is very 

 rapidly increasing. There are two good reasons for this : (i) 

 Protective legislation, and (2) the almost total destruction of 

 predatory birds, as a result of game preservation. 



Now to the food question : First, I must ask you to clear 

 your mind of the established ideas, because these are in many 

 •cases incorrect; and, further, what was true thirty years ago 



