44 NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 
disprove the previous allegation that the Black Redstart had 
nested in that neighbourhood. | 
The BRITISH REDBREAST (p. 16). During the winter 
of rg11-12 a bird with a white head and back was seen near 
Stenhouse (Tynron). The “ daily newspaper with the largest 
circulation ’’ duly published, in 1912, the stirring news that 
‘“ the late Mrs Barr had a visitation from a robin in her garden 
at Penpont for three consecutive years. It was known by a 
white feather in one of its wings.’’" A Redbreast with a 
white head was seen at Capenoch on 12th March, 1912, and 
such abnormalities are not of rare occurrence. 
Lieut.-Colonel A. E. Lascelles in 1920 found a Redbreast’s 
nest at Blackwood (Keir) which was entirely suspended from 
the lowest branch of a young spruce about two feet from the 
ground : the nest was domed like that of a Chiffchaff but with 
the entrance hole rather high up and large in proportion to the 
size of the nest. 
In March, 1922, a pair of Redbreasts made their nest in 
a coil of an old rope hanging on the wall of the coal hole 
adjoining a house in Glencaple (Caerlaverock) and before the 
end of the month four eggs had been laid and were being 
incubated. “6 
[The NIGHTINGALE (p. 18). It is interesting to note 
that the first, and so far (1922) only, specimen recorded in 
Scotland was obtained on the Isle of May on oth May, rorr.™ 
An old statement which I have hitherto not recorded, that this 
species had been heard in Dumfriesshire, is made in 4 Trzatise 
on British Song-Birds by Patrick Syme, 1823, p. 112. I do 
not credit this statement and only mention it here to show 
that it has not escaped my attention. 
The late James Shaw, schoolmaster at Tynron Upper 
School, has given ‘‘ Nightingales ’’ as a local name for 
Moths.%8] 
76 Daily Mail, 31st August, 1912. 
76a Dumfries and Galloway Courier and Herald, 12th April, 1922. 
77 Annals of Scottish Natural History, 1911, p. 132. 
78 Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural 
History and Antiquarian Society, 1893-4, p. 152, 
