BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
Few onomatopoeic names are so expressive as the name 
" Coal an can'le licht " by which in some locaUties the Long- 
tailed Duck is known. In the Outer Hebrides where I 
became famiUar with the species, I was instantly struck 
by the resemblance of its gabbUng cry to these words ; 
though it must be remembered, as Robert Gray says, that 
" it speaks with a good Scotch accent."* 
Its breeding-range may be roughly said to be circumpolar, 
but it has nested in the Shetland Isles, while in wmter it 
migrates as far south as about lat. 40° north, both m the 
eastern and western hemispheres. 
THE COMMON EIDER. Somateria moUissima (Linnaeus). 
An irregular and uncommon visitor to our coast. 
In his Vertebrate Fauna of Lakeland (1892) the late H. A. 
Macpherson stated that the Eider Duck was entirely un- 
known in the upper portions of the English Solway.f and 
the same might at that date have been said of our coast. 
A specimen obtained by Mr. McCall on the Solway off 
Carsethomin 1896. and now in his possession, J can hardly 
be claimed as taken within our Umits ; but the Common 
Eider, of recent years, has been observed occasionally off 
our shores. The report of an Eider said to have been shot 
by one Tom Gunzean in November or December, 1882 
on the Nith near Kingholm, sounds improbable, though 
Dr J W Martin writes me : " The man who shot it says he 
knew it was an Eider, because he was in the fowl trade 
and recognised the bird." The species is exclusively mari- 
time, and Kingholm is some four or five mUes from the sea. 
The Common Eider seldom leaves its breeding-places 
unless driven by stress of weather. It nests m the 
* Birds of West Scotland, 1871, p. 393. 
t Fauna of Lakeland, 1892, p. 301. 
% Dumfries Courier and Herald, November 24th, 1896. 
