532 
tical astronomy within the reach of many who have been hindered 
from the prosecution of this branch of science by the bulk and 
expensiveness of the instruments required. 
3. On the Nesting Birds of Linlithgowshire and Berwick- 
shire. By the Rev. John Duns, F.R.S.E., Torphichen. 
In April 1860, I brought under the notice of the Society a clas- 
sified list of the Birds of Linlithgowshire. The list was accompanied 
with notes, “ On the Structure and Habits of some of the Rarer 
Species.” After the publication of the Society’s Proceedings, several 
communications were addressed to me by well-known ornithologists, 
chiefly with the view of ascertaining, if some of the rarer species 
named had been known to nest in the district. This led to the 
revision of the list, and to the exclusion of such species as are either 
rare visitors only, or winter birds of passage. A List of the Birds 
of Berwickshire, drawn up on the same plan, is now associated with 
this. 
Were similar lists to be drawn up by observers in other counties, 
the true native birds of Scotland would be better known than they 
are at present. In most works on British Ornithology they are 
classed with stragglers from almost every clime. 
Several influences are at work, which may soon come to diminish 
the numbers of our native nesting-birds, and which have already 
reduced them in certain districts. In the Lowlands, there are now 
large tracts of country, in which game is not protected, and in which 
laws of trespass are never enforced. It is thus easy for any youth 
to carry a gun in quarters in which, a few years ago, he would have 
been closely watched. The rarer birds suffer ; they are intruded on 
in their favourite haunts, and either scared from them at the breeding 
season, or wantonly destroyed. The black grouse, which used to 
breed regularly in Linlithgowshire, is now seldom seen, and the red 
o-rouse is now confined to a heath-clad tract, of a few hundred acres, 
which is being fast broken in upon by mining operations. In the 
course of four or five years, both species will cease to be reckoned as 
nesting-birds in the county. The king- fisher, the ring-ousel, the 
redstart, the gold-crest wren, the bullfinch and goldfinch, have so 
greatly diminished within a few years, that they are now compara- 
tively rare. 
