NOTES ON THE BirDsS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 11 
economic value. Our shore-shooters on the Solway state 
that Wild-fowl were never more plentiful and attribute this 
to the constant practice of big guns elsewhere on the coast : 
such changes, nevertheless, can only be regarded as tem- 
porary. A war-time innovation—‘‘ Summer-time ’’—first 
appointed in 1916, bids fair, however, to become an annual 
institution and ornithologists who study the hourly be- 
haviour of birds will have to bear this in mind. Nor can I 
refrain from mentioning the practice, which has certainly 
become more general in recent years, of turning down 
poultry almost broadcast. It is to be feared that the inter- 
mingling of these domestic fowls with wild birds, and 
especially with game birds which are of the same family 
Galline, will render the latter liable to contract those dis- 
eases which are known to infect poultry. Apart from the 
loss of natural food, which must be occasioned to wild birds 
by the introduction of hordes of chickens, I apprehend that 
the spread of Fowl-diseases amongst other birds is a con- 
tingency which is highly probable and the effects of which 
time alone will show. 
When dealing with the various species of birds indi- 
vidually I shall remark, whenever occasion arises, on any 
change in their local status and I cannot agree with one of 
my correspondents who complains of the general decrease 
in the numbers of all our smaller birds which, he alleges, is 
due to teachers encouraging the formation of school collec- 
tions of eggs. I most certainly deprecate this method of 
inculcating the love of Natural History upon the youth of 
the county, and I have reason to believe that our little colony 
of Great-crested Grebes at Lochmaben has already suffered 
in the process. It is difficult to account for the ups and 
downs of our avian population; for that the numbers of 
different species vary from time to time I think there can be 
no doubt. The Starling, which is believed to have been quite 
common locally at the end of the eighteenth century, was 
more than a rarity in 1840 and not till 1865 did the species 
resuscitate and gradually attain the numerical strength in 
which it was found throughout the county in the early years 
of the twentieth century. The ravages of Grouse-disease 
