The Bird Life of the Firth of Forth. By B,obt. Gray. 85 



of autumn and commencement of winter ; but on the morning of 

 that day the south-eastern shores of Scotland were visited by an 

 awful storm — the disastrous effects of which among our seafaring 

 people will be long remembered. During its continuance many 

 boats were wrecked, and nearly 200 fishermen were drowned on 

 the coasts of Berwickshire and East Lothian alone. Glreat 

 northern divers, red-throated divers, grebes, guillemots, and 

 other sea birds were quite unable to withstand the fury of the 

 gale ; and in the midst of a sea lashed into a state of commotion 

 which fairly overpowered every living creature, they sought 

 shelter in some numbers in the harbours at Dunbar and other 

 seaports between Burntisland and Berwick-on-Tweed. Their 

 presence in such circumstances attracted a good deal of attention, 

 and showed that the birds had instinctively betaken themselves 

 to these places of refuge before the storm had reached its height, 

 as it is believed by all who witnessed the appalling effects of the 

 hurricane that no living thing, bird or beast, could have existed 

 either in the air or in the water. Such birds, indeed, as were 

 unable to seek the shelter of harbours owing to their having been 

 far from the land when they were overtaken by the storm must 

 have been utterly destroyed. The storm was as unexpected as 

 it was destructive ; it came on without further warning than a 

 sudden and heavy fall of the barometer — a sign which, so far as 

 the fishermen were concerned, was unfortunately to a great ex- 

 tent disregarded, and hence its calamitous effects. I may add 

 that the appearance of great northern divers and grebes in tidal 

 harbours in Scotland is in my experience without parallel. 



The fij-st oceanic birds that came shorewards, by which I 

 mean those species that are known to congregate and feed to- 

 gether at considerable distances from land, were the pomarine 

 skuas — a flock of which made their appearance at Prestonpans 

 while the gale lasted. They were in a state of great exhaustion, 

 and about half-a-dozen specimens were obtained there, and one 

 or two more at other parts of the coast, one having been secured 

 as far up the Firth as Queensferry. The stomachs of all the 

 birds examined were empty, with the exception of one, which 

 contained the remains of a wading bird, probably a ruff. Simul- 

 taneously there appeared large numbers of storm petrels, many 

 of which were blown some distance inland, where they were 

 captured — records of the birds having been caught or otherwise 

 dispersed having reached me from Dunbar and the Lammer- 



