5 
way is, perhaps, not to be excelled. At the Lighthouse numerous 
species appear at the time of setting out from our shores, and are 
sometimes driven back by adverse winds. Even the Waders, 
such as the knot and sandpiper, are caught on the lantern, 
upwards of 300 feet above the sea level; and the ring ouzel and 
gold-crest are likewise captured—the latter in great numbers. 
In many of the woods near Newton-Stewart, and extending from 
that westwards to the Rhinns of Galloway, very great flocks of 
migratory species collect in the end of autumn, and appear to 
wait a favourable opportunity of effecting a start. We have also 
noticed that, in the south of Wigtownshire, early migrants, such 
as the swift, sensibly increase in numbers as the time for their 
migration approaches. Large flocks from the north may even be 
seen passing southwards on the west side of the Rhinns, and 
steering at a considerable height in the air, with a strong and 
steady flight, and with apparently no intention of halting until 
their journey is accomplished. 
Looking to the fact that there are so many safe places of refuge 
westward of our district, where the birds of the Hebrides assemble 
during winter, we naturally do not look for many marine species 
whose boundary line, so to speak, may be said to be north of the 
Solway. The Scoters, for example, are almost wholly absent, and 
we listen in vain for the wildly-musical call note of the long-tailed 
duck—a species of constant occurrence within the circle of the 
inner islands. On the other hand, such birds as the quail, which 
evidently come to us from the Irish coast, where they are taken 
in some numbers, are familiar in almost every parish—their soft 
and gentle note on dewy evenings being a well-known and 
pleasing sound in the summer months. 
In conclusion, we may remark that, contrasted with a county 
like Aberdeenshire, which may almost be called the opposite 
extreme of our district, there are many differences at once ap¬ 
parent. Several North American land birds and Waders, which 
would seem to travel to this country via Greenland, Iceland, and 
the Faroe Islands, and thence by Orkney and Shetland to the 
outlying shoulder of Scotland represented in the shires of Banff 
and Aberdeen, are never seen with us; while, as an offset to this 
deficiency, we have large and interesting migratory flocks from 
the central and western portion of our island lingering at the fall 
of the leaf in our famed glens and valleys, and beside our brown 
