246 



BIRDS. 



the mouth of Tay." Mr. Robert Walker gives a very interesting 

 account of Eiders, and of the next mentioned and rarer King Eider, 

 in St. Andrews Bay, which I would like to have quoted fully had 

 space permitted {Scot. Nat., vol. ii. p. 49). 



My friend Col. H. W. Feilden, when resident at Cambo and 

 Rankeillor, in Fife, found Eiders fairly abundant between 1850 and 

 1855 on Tents Muir, and had seen as many as three or four nests 

 there in one day. That, however, did not by any means represent 

 the holding capabilities of the extensive range of sandhills, etc., but 

 for a time they became much rarer, or indeed within range of possible 

 extinction, due entirely to "bird-nesting boys" from Dundee and 

 elsewhere, who came over in boats and worked their " sweet will " 

 amongst all kinds of wild things. Xo check was put upon these whole- 

 sale depredations for many years. Few things escaped ! But, after 

 a time, there was an alteration in matters caused by the introduc- 

 tion of the Bird Preservation Acts, and, better still, the able support 

 given. The County Council adopted the Act, and, with the assistance 

 of the proprietors — Admiral Maitland Dougall and afterwards the 

 sporting tenant, Mr. W. Berry, of Tayfield — it was carried out 

 vigorously. To Mr. Berry all praise is due for his able drafting and 

 laying out the limits of the area where the greater number of the 

 wild birds nested, and the assistance he gave to the County Council 

 in 1896. This must remain ever as creditable and efficient history 

 Genuine acknowledgments, I say, are due to him by all of us who love 

 the untrammelled shores and the wild-vjays" of our native land, and 

 all their lonely loveliness, and all the wild things that they harbour — 

 the bustling and crowding throng of autumn migrants among birds, 

 and the vivid lives of birds and beasts and flowers. Sorely were 

 they in need ; sorely near destruction, sorely harried, tormented, and 

 despoiled. Let us at least retain some few places of rest far from the 

 pulsing, selfish throng of inhumanity, which seems more and more 

 in these latter days to be usurping, crowding, and suffocating the 

 very air we breathe, and monopolising the pleasant paths of former 

 peace! Falel I am at the "three-score time"; my limit may or 

 may not see a still newer phase of congestion now rapidly ajoproach- 

 ing upon us ! 



Further to the north, along the Forfar coast. Eiders are found 

 here and there. Young have been caught in the salmon nets at 

 Haughs of Benholm (28th July 1897), others have been shot at 

 Johnshaven in August 1899. It was not then recorded that they 

 bred there (Geo. Sim), but Mr. Milne gives me good evidence of at 



