FAUNAL AEEA AND ITS POSITION. 



The area — if a small scale map be consulted — as already said, 

 may be described as pear-shaped. The apex or stalk of the 

 pear and conical portion expands inland from Girdleness. The 

 outline follows the rim of the Grampian range on the N.E., N.KW., 

 W., and S.W., and turns round by the south as far as Crieff ; but the 

 further extension runs out through much lower elevations along 

 the crests of the eastern Ochils and the Lomond Hills of Fife, and 

 by the almost flat lands of the Howe of Fife to the Fifeness, the 

 coasts north-eastwards to Girdleness completing the fanciful outline 

 of a pear. 



The coast-line, it is true, presents little or no formidable barrier 

 to the migration-flow of birds ; but the trend of the coast-line being 

 from a north-easterly direction to a south-westerly direction, offers 

 no prominent catchment to pull up the migratory flocks, nor does it 

 offer special inducement to them to deviate from their previous 

 course, if that course runs from north-east to south-west, as has 

 been stated it does. 



Now, the estuary of the Tay is narrower than that of its sister 

 estuary of Forth to the south, and it seems to me that these two 

 sister areas merge the one into the other, rendering it not quite 

 easy to assign to each its due share of influence in arresting or re- 

 ceiving the bulk of the migration streams which reach our coasts, 

 whether the due direction of these flights be normally from north- 

 east to south-west, or more directly from east to west — a settlement 

 of which question does not appear to me to be by any means decided. 



Thus the Bell Rock appears to me to hold an intermediate posi- 

 tion of importance between Tay and Forth, just according to the 

 general trend of the usual streams of migration. I believe Bell 

 Rock may be a resting place or a lead to both, but I am inclined 



Ixxii 



