308 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
" the Stock-Dove appears to have been a breeding species 
for several years at aU events, if not for a much longer 
period,"* a statement with which I entirely concur, though 
I know of no authenticated record prior to 1883 or 1884. 
Mr. J. Harkness writes me in 1908 : " It is twenty-two 
years since I saw first the Stock-Dove at Kinmount, and the 
keeper told me that they had nested three or four years 
before that. They nested in the cow-park south of the 
mansion in the thick growth of the hme trees. Whether 
these trees stiU stand I do not know, as there has been such 
an alteration, and I have not been there for eighteen years 
or more." Mr. Tom Brown in 1888 records a nest found m 
Tynron "some years ago under an overhanging bank."t 
I am informed by Mr. J. H. Mihie-Home in 1908 that 
this species breeds annuaUy near Langholm, and m one 
place since about 1889; a similar report concernmg 
Raehills (Johnstone) reaches me from Mr. W. Renwick. 
Mr. E. A. Johnson-Ferguson tells me (1908) that the 
Stock-Dove is quite common at Springkell (Kirkpatrick- 
Fleming); he has observed them ever since he first 
began to take an interest in birds (i.e., about 1888), 
and they nest in rabbit-holes. Mr. S. BeU informs me 
that this species was noticed at Crichope Linn (Closeburn) 
in 1892, and that it breeds there annually in rabbit-burrows 
or under rocks. Mr. John Dalzell writes me in 1908 from 
Middlebie, that the Stock-Dove has nested there since about 
1893, and I have reports of its having bred more recently m 
the parishes of Kirkconnel, Sanquhar, Penpont, Keir, Glen- 
cairn, Dunscore, Holywood, Kirkmahoe, Hoddom, Tmwald, 
Kirkpatrick-Juxta, Moffat and Canonbie. Doubtless this 
species also breeds in many of the remaining parishes where 
it has not yet been detected from lack of observation. 
In this county the nest is, as a rule, in a rabbit-burrow, a 
chff-recess, or hidden among a mass of ivy ; but Mr. Norman 
Maclachlan tells me that he found a nest in May, 1908, some 
* Proc. Roy. Phys. Soc. Edin., February 21st, 1883, Vol. VIL, p. 253. 
t Trans. D. and O. Nat. Hist. Soc, December 4th, 1885. 
