Birds, 147 



the olden time ? Has his accuracy been tried by this the one stand- 

 ard of justice — and was it found wanting ? It gives me pleasure to 

 be able to do justice to his memory : I know of three instances in this 

 neighbourhood in which solitary pairs have scooped their nest, many 

 miles distant from the larger colonies, and even these are composed of 

 very few pairs. They are found in the banks of our mountain streams 

 in their course through the lowlands, and in a sand-bank washed by 

 the ocean's surge, to the westward of the basaltic rocks of Whitberry 

 Point. — Archibald Hepburn; Whittingham, March 27, 1843. 



Notes on the Swallow, Ten years have elapsed since I first read 

 tlie pleasant monograph on the swallow, by the good philosopher of 

 Selborne. The circumstance of its building in chimneys was, to me, 

 both novel and astonishing. To this hour I have spared neither per- 

 sonal research nor enquiry to ascertain whether they frequent such 

 situations in Scotland. The result is, that they have been known to 

 breed in the chimney-stalk of steam-engines on different farms, but 

 none of my friends or correspondents has ever heard of their breeding 

 in the chimney of any dwelling-house or out-house in Scotland. Now 

 instead of theorizing on this apparent anomaly, let me call the atten- 

 tion of field naturalists in the northern counties of Britain to the cir- 

 cumstance. Let them ascertain the geographical limits within which 

 the swallow breeds in the chimneys of dwelling-houses, and thus elu- 

 cidate this long-neglected point in its economy. Swallows usually 

 depart firom E. Lothian about the latter end of September. Last sea- 

 son, one was observed at Whittingham House on the 8th of Novem- 

 ber, and another at Tantallon castle opposite to the Bass Rock, on the 

 12th of the same month. This late residence of the swallow in Scot- 

 land is, I believe, unparelleled. — Id. 



Note on the Migration of Birds, I have read with pleasure the 

 many interesting notices which you have already published, of the 

 effect which the mildness of the past autumn and early winter has ex- 

 erted on the habits and migrations of birds. The following are a few 

 of the more striking incidents which have occurred to me. When 

 crossing a lonely moor in Lanarkshire on the 1 1th of October, I saw 

 several fieldfares. A few days afterwards, Mr. M. Carfrae, preserver 

 of animals to the museum of the Edinburgh University, told me he 

 saw another flock about a month previously, at Lasswade, near that 

 city : their early appearance is unprecedented with us. Observed a 

 woodcock on the 1 7th of October; they have been very numerous this 

 season, and so have the various species of ducks, but geese have been 

 very scarce. Bramblings were uncommonly abundant. Observed a 



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