306 Mr. A. Kelly on some of the Birds of Lauderdale. 



he first came in sight of them, they were standing on a 

 broad hemming of ice enclosing the water; but this was 

 only momentary, as both plunged into the water and re- 

 appeared on the same place ; and this action was repeated 

 over and over again. They were feeding, he thought, on 

 the spawn of the trout. He crept nearer them under cover 

 of the branches to get within shot. Perceiving they were 

 watched, they instinctively kept in the water, only occa- 

 sionally putting up their beaks for air in the current ; the 

 ice preventing them from getting under shelter of the 

 willows and other strong herbage at the sides. Many years 

 previous, Mr. Simson, Lauder, obtained a specimen from the 

 same place ; and he also almost succeeded in " gumping " 

 another, much later during the summer season. The Little 

 Grebe is very uncommon here. 



Uria Troile. — Some six summers since, Mr. Simson cap- 

 tured one swimming in the Leader, at a place called the 

 Hatter's Hole. 



Mergulus Alle. — This quaint little traveller, the Rotche 

 of Arctic voyagers, actually made his way here, a distance I 

 should suppose of not less than thirty or forty miles up the 

 Tweed basin, before he was captured by a workman, about 

 Harryburn House, who, seeing the little fellow paddling up 

 the burn, hauled him out with his hoe. 



Phalacrocorax Carbo. — A Cormorant was found in a 

 dying state, at Tollishill, some fifteen miles from the sea. 



Larus ridibundus. — The Black-headed Gulls are abun- 

 dant in Legerwood Loch, which has from time immemorial 

 been one of their favourite breeding places. 



Thalassidroma pelagica. — Once during a severe gale, a 

 Storm Petrel was shot as far inland as Oxton, six miles 

 north from Lauder. 



Andrew Kelly. 



