BIRDS. 



281 



they entirely, or almost entirely, disappeared. The Goldfinch is 

 a favourite cage-bird in the North as well as in the South, so that 

 the unfortunate little bird was harassed on all hands. 



Besides the foregoing, severe winters seem to have been very 

 destructive to these birds. Don gives the winter of 1813, and 

 Macgillivray that of 1823, as being very fatal to Goldfinches, and 

 probably their numbers never increased much, if at all, since then 

 (Gray, Birds of West of Scotland, p. 145). 



South of the Ness the Goldfinch is resident, but extremely 

 local, and decimated by land improvement and by bird-catchers. 



The O.S.A. records the Goldfinch in the parish of Kilmalie 

 ['Argyll'], vol. viii. p. 423; Mortlach, vol. xvii. p. 418. 



Mr. Eobert Peddison, an old bird-catcher near Forres, whom 

 we interviewed specially in connection with this species, remem- 

 bered the Goldfinch 'swarming.' At the present time — as he 

 related to us — he has to buy birds from England and from Eussia ! 



Even as early as 1884 it is noted as 'not very common'; and 

 by 1885 there is a general consensus of opinion which makes out 

 the Goldfinch as 'a rare bird noic' About thirty-five years 

 previous to 1890, Captain Dunbar-Brander used to take one 

 or two nests every year near Elgin ; he has not seen a single 

 bird for the past ten years. In 1885 Brown of Forres 'vvrote, 

 'Nowhere to be seen.' But in 1887, however, Mr. O. A. J. Lee 

 saw a Goldfinch in the neighbourhood of Forres on May 18th. 

 In 1863 to 1865 Harvie-Brown used frequently to see Gold- 

 finches in an apple- and cherry-tree orchard far up the Spey 

 in Badenoch (1200 feet above the sea), which orchard was in 

 an enclosure close to the bedroom-windows of the farm in which 

 he stayed when fishing the upper reaches of the Spey for trout — 

 one of the very few places he has seen Goldfinches in Scotland. 

 Edward speaks of it as rare, and 'in great measure captured 

 by the bird-catchers,' but at one time, according to his notes, 

 it appears to have bred about the Lower Deveron. Dr. J. O. 

 Wilson, in his list of the birds of the Huntly district, includes it 

 under square brackets, and unnumbered, and says: — 'The Gold- 

 finch has not been seen w ild in this district for many years, as far 

 as I know.' In 1892, however, Mr. Kobert Thomson, of Ferness 

 school-house, informs us he saw a pair in a garden there. 



In 1893 we were informed by Mr. C. W. Douglas (Assistant 



