BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 293 
northern countries of Europe ; and in Great Britain, from 
Northumberland to the Orkney and Shetland Isles. It is 
said to be increasing as a breeding-species in the western 
isles of Scotland, and it bred, so Mr. R. Service informs me, 
for the first time within the Solway area, in Colvend parish 
(Kirkcudbright) in 1908. 
THE COMMON SCOTER. (Edemia nigra (Linn^us). 
Local names— Black Scoter ; Black Duck. 
A common winter-visiUnt to the Solway Firth. 
" Mabie Moss " writes : " Since 1876 I have known that 
each season a larger or smaller flock of Black Scoter remained 
on the Solway the whole season through, but it is not long 
since I became aware that the fact was most unusual. 
They are mostly to be found somewhere between a point two 
or three miles seawards of Heston and another point 
abreast of Southerness, and ... are never very far out ; 
seldom out of sight with a pair of binoculars. This com- 
paratively smaU flock appears to be immature birds which 
never fly inland. Some winters, indeed most winters, there 
are thousands of Scoters in the Solway, but when these 
depart in spring for more northern waters a smaU remnant 
IS left. I beheve that no Scoters remain anywhere else in 
Britain in summer except at some spots in the Inner 
Hebrides— Tiree, for instance."* Howard Saunders, however, 
states that " a comparatively small number of immature 
Common or Black Scoters may be observed on our coasts 
[i.e. of Great Britain] during the entire summer, but the 
autumn and winter months are those in which this species is 
reaUy abundant. ... On the Solway . . . thousands are 
sometimes seen."t 
* Dumfries Courier and Herald, September 7th, 1896. 
t Man. Brit. Birds, 1899, p. 465. 
