1911-1912.] The Birds of Nairn. 401 



siderably altered the conditions so far as bird-life is concerned, 

 driving some species to desert, and encouraging others to 

 occupy, certain areas. Waste places are brought under 

 cultivation, bogs are drained, gorse, broom, and coarse natural 

 herbage are cleared away, and, so far, the conditions are altered 

 in a direction unfavourable to certain forms of wild life. In 

 this county, however, there are tracts which, as long as waves 

 roll and winds blow, it will always be beyond the power of 

 man to reclaim, or in any appreciable degree to modify. On 

 the other hand, if some birds find the desirable conditions of 

 life in waste and watery places, there are many species which 

 find most to their taste the soil, climate, and general conditions 

 approved by man : many even which find the condition of 

 their wellbeing only on the fringe of human habitation. Birds 

 are admittedly excellent judges of climate, and it may be in 

 some measure on their evidence that it has come to be so 

 generally conceded that the county of Nairn has, one thing 

 set against another, one of the finest climates in Great Britain. 

 It has been observed, for instance, apropos of a castle which 

 Shakespeare has placed in Inverness, that " where the temple- 

 haunting martlets do most breed and haunt, the air is delicate." 

 On such authority as this we may assume that the swarms of 

 the Swallow tribe, which make our summer skies so jubilant, 

 are a sufficient voucher for the excellence of the Nairn air and 

 climate, — a climate not so much mild as moderate, avoiding 

 the extremes of too little and too much, with something in it 

 of bland even in December, and not altogether devoid of 

 " nip " even in July. This is the kind of climate which suits 

 the birds of a temperate zone, and their instinct tells them 

 where to find it. 



Some definition and subdivision of the area with which I 

 am at present concerned is essential to the coherence of the 

 remarks which I have to make on the birds of this county. 

 Nairn, then, is a small irregularly cuneiform slice of country 

 sloping to the north and north-west, and wedged in between 

 the two larger counties of Inverness and Elgin. Its northern 

 and littoral boundary, to speak by the card, extends for nine 

 miles along the south shore of the Moray Firth, from Whiteness 

 Head, which lies four miles to the west of the town of Nairn, 

 to the middle of the Old Bar of Findhorn, which lies five 



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