BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 203 
In a description of Loch Urr in 1792 it is stated that that 
lalie IS about three English miles round. It is nine 
fathoms at deepest, and surrounds a small island 
A vast number of Waterfowls bring forth their young on 
the island, where there are some bushes. Eagles have been 
known to breed on it."* The birds here referred to may 
have been Ospreys ; but whether or no, at the beginning 
of the mneteenth century the White-tailed Eagle was 
indubitably a nesting-species in certain spots in the county • 
though Dr. Bushnan writing in 1834 doubts " whether a pair 
IS to be found in Dumfriesshire, or more than a dozen in 
OraUoway. f Sir WiUiam Jardine writing some four years 
later says : " In England the breeding places of the Sea 
Eagle are now very rare, perhaps not more than one or 
two. The birds themselves are, however, not unfrequently 
met with and shot, both in the south and the border 
counties of Scotland, which are also beyond their breeding 
range ; but the greater part of the birds thus kiUed are 
in immature plumage."} 
H A. Macpherson stated in 1892 : " I can only reaffirm 
my behef that such Eagles as visited the mountains of the 
Lake district during the first half of the present century 
had their eyries in Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbright. 
Mr. J. Fisher Crosthwaite informs me that ' there was a very 
fane hvmg Eagle belonging to the proprietors of Crosthwaite's 
Museum which was caught at Maryport, and was supposed 
to have come from Scotland.' "§ 
The place-name Earn Craig in Closeburn parish may 
denote a former nesting-site of this species, which can now 
only be regarded as a very rare visitor to the county. 
Mr. James Bartholomew informs me that a White-taUed 
Eagle was seen at Loch Skene in 1905, and also in 1908 ; and 
these fitful appearances may induce the hope that there 
* Stat. Acct. Scot., Vol. II., p. 342. 
t Edin. Journ. Nat. Hist., 1837, Vol. I., p. 99. 
t Nat. Lib., 1838, Vol. IX., p. 176. ' 
§ Fauna of Lakeland, 1892, p. 201. 
