WEST COAST OF SCOTLAND. 75 



September or October, Mr. Service has often watched departing 

 flights of birds going off southward or seaward, over the Solway 

 Firth. Large congregations of Swallows were observed by me at 

 Kinross on telegraph wires on Aug. 3rd, and I was told that they 

 congregate in the same place every autumn before leaving. 

 There must have been many hundreds. 



The following really belongs to the East Coast Keport, and 

 comes in under Mr. Hardy's notes from Berwickshire and the 

 Borders : — Mr. Hardy has abundant evidence of the departure of 

 Swallows in the border counties. He writes to me as follows : — 

 "Old Cambus, Oct. 28th.— On Sept. 25th and 26th Swallows were 

 here, and a pair of Martins were then on the coast, seven having 

 been seen on the 26th. The main party assembled on the coast 

 on the 21st and 22nd, and were not again visible, excepting this 

 small party. I went down to the cave where the nests were, and 

 evidently they were feeding young birds there. On the 30th 

 they had not left a steading about a mile above Gilsland. They 

 were present on Oct. 2nd and 3rd near Kosely Castle, eight miles 

 south of Carlisle. On the 4th they were assembling on the roof 

 of the Mansion House of Marchmont, Berwickshire, in great 

 numbers, during snow and sleet. The 'Kelso Chronicle' of Oct. 

 15th says, * Swallows were absent three weeks from Kelso, but 

 again, in Kelso and the country round, their presence that week 

 had been conspicuous. They had assembled in flocks.' The 

 same paper of Oct. 22nd states that, 'On Oct. 17th a good many 

 Swallows were flying about Jedburgh.' At Brampton, Cumber- 

 land, they were seen on Oct. 16th, 'circling round the church for 

 several days previous.' On Sept. 22nd, Swallows still at Horsley, 

 in the valley of the Eye, and a Martin still had young in a nest 

 in the corner of a window." 



Besides the above, it is worth while to take notice of an 

 account of migration that appeared in an early volume of the 

 ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' relating to the South-west 

 district of Scotland : — " An extract of a letter from Capt. Fayrer, 

 C.M.Z.S., was read. It was dated on board H. M.'s Packet 

 ' Arrow,' Port Patrick, Oct. 23rd, 1831, and referred to the 

 migration of certain birds from that neighbourhood. That of the 

 Larks commenced about Oct. 12th. 'Their numbers,' says Capt. 

 Fayrer, 'are beyond anything I would venture to state, but 

 millions They -start at daylight, steer directly across to 



