ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 17 



range along the rich lands facing the sea in that county. 

 I have often been charmed with the sight of thousands 

 of larks so assembled. They seem more tame at the 

 season to which I refer than in summer, and you may 

 approach them closely without disturbing them. 



Bullfinches have increased in number in my time. 

 They now frequent the old woods in Upper Berwickshire, 

 where fifty years ago they were all but unknown. I 

 have often found their nests in the bosky policies of 

 Spring wood Park, and there is a fair sprinkling of them 

 on Jed Water. 



The Blackcap Warbler I have only once seen on 

 Jed Water, nearly fifty years ago. I was led to it 

 by its fine singing ; and some thirty-eight years ago I 

 saw several blackcap warblers, and heard them singing 

 at Spring wood Park. It is a very rare bird in 

 Roxburgshire. 



The Goldfinch. — Long ago, I now and then came 

 across goldfinches in Roxburghshire, and I have seen 

 their nests often. They now seem extinct in that 

 county. It was for long popularly believed that the 

 birds had died out or forsaken the district, because of 

 the scarcity of what was supposed to be their favourite 

 food, the thistle, that emblematic plant having been 

 so cleverly eradicated from the land by the fine and 

 effective cultivation of the soil under a spell of high 

 farming. Of course, farmers laughed at the popular 

 belief, knowing well that " the auld Scottish thistle " 

 will show its bloomy heads in goodly numbers as long 

 as the land contains any growing power. 



The grey linnet seems scarcely so numerous as of old, 

 but chaffinches, yellow hammers, and green linnets keep 

 up in number, as do also the families of tits and wrens, 

 with the exception perhaps of the long-tailed tit, which 



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