BIKDS. 



161 



This communication from Mr. Milne is of much interest, even 

 should they not have nested in 1904. This becomes specially so 

 when we take into consideration the well-known fact of its having 

 returned — or extended its breeding range — once more into the 

 southern districts of Scotland south of Forth and Clyde. There 

 are some naturalists who will not admit that any sequence in such 

 matters exists, i.e. between migrations and dispersal, or at least will not 

 acknowledge any such, and continue to marvel on about these great 

 mysteries. I really think, in some cases at least, that the fear of 

 theorising gets the better of common-sense deductions, though it 

 may well be granted that an axiom cannot yet be laid down which 

 will rule all cases, or equally affect all species. My readers will, 

 I hope, at least grant that I have always upheld the close connection 

 between congestion and migration, and thereafter between migration and 

 dispersal, and on many occasions have illustrated the causes and 

 effects, so far as common-sense and many years' study of these 

 phenomena can claim to have warranted my opinions. At all events, 

 while I have often been doubted, or had doubts thrown upon my 

 deductions — which may not be seriously objected to in itself — still 

 nobody has projected anything better that I have seen or been made 

 acquainted with during all these years — say since the commence- 

 ment of the inquiry of the British Association as to the migration 

 of birds at lighthouses. Nor, that I am aware of, has any one even 

 taken up the phase of the subject above referred to, but has 

 invariably, so to speak, " shied " it. This in some cases may be 

 entirely due to their not "reading back," of which we have many 

 evidences in modern recording. 



I have many other records, with full references, of the autumn 

 and winter occurrences of this bird within this area, but it scarcely 

 seems necessary to detail them. The following are a few showing 

 dispersal: Fife, and also Perth and Forfar, in 1887 (see Scot, Nat., 

 1887-8, p. 295, etc., etc.). Fife, at Scotscraig, 15th Nov. 1872. 

 In Perth, one, in Mr. P. D. Malloch's register, 26th Nov. 1891, 

 got by Mr. K. Kay, Murthly. Forfar, one, 26th Nov. 1898, and. 

 Dr. F. T. Dewar. Fife, "Often got about Cambo," auct. keeper 

 to Mr. G-eorge Bruce, etc. {vivd voce, 1895, etc., etc.) ; and later, 

 "several shot in the parish of Guthrie about seven years ago" 

 (say 1898). 



Since the above lines were written I have heard again from Mr. 

 J. Milne that "by all appearances the Woodpeckers have left us, 

 for Mr. J. Wyllie tells me that he was through the woods on the 



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