332 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
Possibly it is the Ptarmigan which is referred to in a 
description of Tweeddale,* printed in the text of Blaeu's 
Atlas, and of which I gi^e a translation. The author is 
unnamed, but is presumably Sir John Scott of Scotstarvet, 
who seems to have written his contributions to the Atlas 
about 1645 :— 
" In this district are many mountains, of which very 
few or none are rocky ; the following are bigger and higher 
than the rest, 'the Hill of Stags,' commonly called 
Hartfiellt ; ' the Broad Hill of the Stag's Stone,' commonly 
called Braidalb,} of Hertstone, which is remarkable, among 
other things, for the great quantity of wild birds upon it, 
especially . atagenarum § . spotted with white, and of most 
delicious flavour." 
Such an observation is rendered highly probable, since 
in 1684 we read that in Galloway " there are plenty of Moor 
fowls, Partridges, Tarmakens, etc.||" ; about the same 
period it is recorded of Minnigaff parish (Kirkcudbright- 
shire) : " In the remote parts of this great mountain 
[?Lamachan Hill, 2,349 feet] ... and about the top 
thereof, that fine bird, called the Mountain Partridge, or, by 
the commonalty, the Tarmachan, about the size of a Red- 
cock, and its flesh much of the same nature ; feeds, as that 
bird doth, on the seeds of the bullrush, and makes its 
protection in the chinks and hollow places of thick stones 
* « Multi sunt in hac provincia montes, quorum pauci admodum aut nulli 
saxosi; magnitudine autem et altitudine pras ceteris eminent, Cervor am 
Mons, vulgo Hartfiell; Latodunum Cervini Lapidis, vulgo Braidulb of 
Hertstone ; htmc inter alia commendat magna copia ferarum avium, prae- 
sertim atagenarum albis maculis interstinctarum, saporis delicatissuni. 
Theatrum Orhis Terrarum, 1662, p. 34. 
t Now called Hartfell, 2,651 feet, in the parish of Moffat. 
t Now call Broadlaw, 2,754 feet; in the parish of Tweedsmuir, Peebles- 
shire. The Gaelic alb or alp (like the Anglo-Saxon law) means a mountam 
or hill. Hertstone is the modern (1910) Hearthstane, a farm extendmg up 
on to Broadlaw. 
§ The impossibility of assigning any precise meaning to the word o^s^en 
(or attagen) is made clear by Lord Lilford in the Ibis, 1862, pp. 352-35b. 
11 A Large Desc. of Galloway, p. 79. 
