BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
53 
of insects slugs, water-snaUs, worms, etc., and help 
matenally .n keeping down many noxious cr;atures such 
as the water-snail (Ltmncem tmnculatus), that is the 
secondary host of the liver fluke of sheep "* 
In Dumfriesshire this bird is perhaps the most usual 
victim of the Cuckoo, and the latter can hardly cross i 
?he°e;eTs '"'^ P™"" ''^ ^ P^'^ ^ " Mo- 
Dr. J. W. Martin records one of a canary-colour seen in 
Glencairn parish in August, igoi.f 
[RiCHAED's Pipit (Anthus richardi, VieiUot) is an 
jmcommon visitor to England from central As^I in 
late autumn and winter, some sixty to seventy occur 
rences having been recorded. H. A. Macpherson writes 
of it as an occasional straggler to the EngUsh Solwavt 
and there is an authentic record of its occurr^nr at 
Terregles§ which, as wiU be seen in the map I in Lk 
cudbrightshire, barely a mile over our bounda 3^ lo^l 
this species may have occurred in DumfriessWre but I 
am not at present aware of any actual record.] 
THE ROCK-PIPIT. Anthus obscurus (Latham). 
Local name— Rock-Lark. 
A common resident in our Hltoral parishes. 
Kiis species frequents the foreshore in autumn, and may 
be seen feeding on the minute flies (Umcsina) bred in the 
decaymg sea-weeds. In spring their nests, so M^^ R 
Service assures me, are made on the saltings, and at aU 
* Science Progress, 1907, Vol. II., p. 278 
t Trar^. D. ar^d G. Nat. Hist. Soc, December 13th, 1901. 
+ ^awwa of Lakeland, 1892, p. 114. 
§ Tram. D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc'., April 20th, 1905. 
