BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 197 
Reiver rendered himself truly formidable to the tenant 
Mr. Aitchison."* 
^ Writing to the Naturalist in 1837, MacgiUivray says • 
The Eagle seems to be extirpated ... the claws of one 
seen at BirkhiU by Sir WiUiam Jardine belonged to the 
Golden Eagle."t There is a farm named BirkhiU in Moffat 
parish, to the east and within two miles of Loch Skene, which 
may be the place referred to. Writing in 1838 Sir WiUiam 
Jardme says: "Upon the wild range of the Scottish 
Borders one or two pairs used to breed, but their nest 
has not been known for twenty years, though a straggler 
m wmter is yet seen amidst the defiles."{ 
Thomas MaxweU of AUanton MiU, in his day the princi- 
pal bird-stuffer in the county, told Mr. R. Service that he 
received a Golden Eagle to stuff from Glenquhargen 
(Penpont) a^out 1860-1865. Another specimen re- 
corded in 1874 as -recently trapped" near the same 
locahty,§ is now known to have come from Inverness- 
shire. Mr. J. Bartholomew writes me: "Mr. Alexander 
Sim m May, 1886, saw a yearling or two-year-old Golden 
Eagle near Loch Skene." " Mabie Moss" wrote in 1894 
I am credibly informed that for a period of several weeks 
during the past winter a splendid Golden Eagle was 
regularly seen frequenting the Earn Craig, a great precipice 
where Eagles once nested in safety, amongst the hills 
behind Queensberry, up behind Burleywhag. They 
nested there so regularly as to give a name to the spot 
sometime in the long ago."|| Mr. John Edmond writes 
^loc^TT W^^^^^k^^ad' " Once about ten years ago [i.e., 
1898], I saw a Golden Eagle at the boundary between 
Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire. I was walking with a 
iriend on the old road that goes from the village up to 
* Dumfries Courier, August 22nd, 1842. 
t Naturalist, 1837, Vol. II., p. 239. 
t Nat. Lib,, 1838, Vol. IX., p. 166. 
§ Minutes of D. and G. Nat. Hist. Soc, April I4th, 1874. 
!l Dumfries Courier and Herald, June 28th, 1894. 
