46 Transactions. 
branches properly laid were covered with scraws, overlapping 
each other like slates, and all covered with straw, heather, 
brackens, or reeds, effectually excluding the rain. There were 
half-a dozen such cottages in the parish when I came to it, and 
one still remains, the old farmhouse of Lower Port Ling. This 
the proprietor, Mr Oswald of Auchencruive and Cavens, guards 
from being improved off the farm. The name of this most 
peculiar kind of structure was in Colvend known as “The cod’s 
head.” 
Closely connected with the disappearance of so many cottages 
is the great decrease in the population of the parish, which, accord- 
ing to the census returns, was in. 1841, 1495 ; 1851, 1398 ; 1861, 
1366; 1871, 1315; 1881, 1281; 1891; 1126. How is this _ 
decrease to be accounted for? The decrease is due to various 
causes, but chiefly, I think, to the altered conditions of farming. 
The farmer can no longer allow the cottar facilities for grazing a 
cow or rearing a pig. From Colvend many have gone to the 
neighbouring town of Dalbeattie, drawn thither by the advanced 
wages to be earned in the granite quarries and polishing mills, 
and some have gone to more distant towns, some to foreign 
lands. 
T have said that in the last fifty years a great number of 
cottages, and what were practically crofter dwellings, have dis 
appeared, and that only a few, a dozen at most, have been built 
to replace them. But, within the last twenty years, a great many 
houses of a superior class have sprung up in all parts of the parish, 
Rockeliffe, the Scaur, Barnhourie, Douglas Hall, Laggan, and 
Portling, and building is still proceeding. Since Mr Oswald, a 
few years ago, decided to grant feus on his estate in Colvend, 
building has taken a fresh start. Already villas have been built 
on the most beautiful spots and salient points of his property, 
from Douglas Hall bay to Portling and Port o’ Warren, and others 
are in contemplation. Some of the houses built cost thousands, 
many of them cost hundreds. The larger and more expensive 
houses were built with the intention of being permanently 
occupied by the proprietors, but the greater number were built 
with the view of being let to the visitors who, in increasing 
numbers, come annually to spend part of the summer and autumn 
months among the hills and by the shores of the parish. For 
long Colvend was unknown, or known only to the few who took 
advantage of such scanty accommodation as could be found in the 
