THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 722.— August, 1901. 



THE RARER BIRDS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH. 

 By the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, M.A. 



The region which lies around the upper waters of the Solway 

 Firth has experienced important changes since the days when 

 Roman legions manned the forts that overlooked the channels of 

 this great Firth against the attacks of northern warriors. Great 

 forests of oak and other indigenous timber then extended from 

 the base of the hills to the sea-beach. The foreign garrisons 

 must have needed trustworthy guides when they sent out parties 

 in search of forage, for so difficult was the country, and so dan- 

 gerous were the watery depths of its reed-fringed morasses, that 

 the utmost care must have been needed to avoid ambushed par- 

 ties of the enemy. The forest glades in which the hind cropped 

 the coppice-wood have long since been furrowed by the plough ; 

 the pedigree Shorthorn grazes on pastures over which herds of 

 Aurochs once stampeded. Even the Bittern has no abiding- 

 place among the bogs that still linger in the Abbey Holme. It 

 is the preservation of such isolated tracts of broken moorland 

 as we find in Salta Moss or Weddholm Flow that help us to 

 picture this area as it existed in the days of our distant fore- 

 fathers. The romance that once invested this wild country has 

 well-nigh disappeared. Only here and there can we find the 

 Merlin or the Short-eared Owl feeding their downy young among 

 ZooL Mh ser. vol. V., August^ IVOl. z 



