514 List of Justices of Berwick, by Rev, Robert Paul. 



Eider Ducks {A. mollissima) are now gathering in to the 

 "Bigs," a favourite resort of theirs, near to Holy Island, where 

 they annually collect, preparatory to pairing off and dispersing 

 to the adjacent Fames and Headlands, to breed. A light cream- 

 coloured specimen built its nest on Boss Links last season, but it 

 is feared it was destroyed before it had completed the incubation 

 of its eggs, and it has not since that time been seen. 



Snipe (Scolopax Gallinago). — The severe winter compelled these 

 birds, in large numbers, to leave the frozen rills and bogs of the 

 "West, and migrate to the more open water courses of the East, 

 and such was the extent of their exodus thither that they were 

 frequently flushed from the ground in flocks. Mr Chas. Purvis, 

 of Alnwick, computed a flock which he sprung from the moats 

 which surround the ruins of Dunstanborough Castle, to have 

 been composed of at least fifty individuals. Many very large 

 and dark varieties have been captured. I have one in my pos- 

 session now which is little inferior in size to the Solitary Snipe 

 (S. major), and is also so like it in colour that it might easily be 

 mistaken for that bird. 



Green Shank (Totanus glottis). — One of these birds was seen 

 by Mr Chas. Purvis, near Boulmer. 



Green Sandpiper {Tringa Ochropus). — Three of these birds 

 made their appearance on the river Aln, in the summer, and re- 

 mained with us till late in the autumn. 



Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus). — A female cream-coloured 

 variety of this bird was shot in White House Wood, and is now 

 in the possession of Earl Percy. 



Alnwick, February 18, 1879. 



List of the Justices in the Commission of Peace of the Shit e 

 of Berwick, 30th May, 1732. Communicated by the Rev. 

 Robert Paul, Coldstream. 



[This list was found among family papers, and is in the hand- 

 writing of my great-great-great-grand father, Charles Erskine, 

 afterwards Lord Justice Clerk Tinwald, and then Solicitor General 

 for Scotland. He was much in the confidence of successive Sec- 

 retaries of State. The list is printed exactly as it is in the 

 original. It is titled on the outside — "List of the Justices in 

 the Commission of Peace for the Shyre of Berwick."] 



