Western Naturalist
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I The Western Naturalist Volume Four 7975 / Annual Subscription £3.00 A Journal of Scottish Natural History THE WESTERN NATURALIST A Journal of Scottish Natural History- Editorial Committee: Dr. J.A. Gibson Dr. John Hamilton Professor J.C. Smyth DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, PAISLEY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, HIGH STREET, PAISLEY The Western Naturalist is a.n independent journal, published by the RENFREWSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, devoted to the study of Scottish natural history, particularly, but not exclus- ively, to the natural history of the Western area. Although its main interests probably centre on fauna and flora it is prepared to publish articles on the many aspects embraced by its title including Zoology, Botany, History, Environment, Geology, Archae- ology, Geography etc. All articles and notes for publication, books for review etc, should be sent to the Editors at the DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, PAISLEY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, HIGH STREET, PAISLEY. Contributions should be clearly written; whenever possible they should be typed, double-spaced, on one side of the paper, with adequate margins, and should try to conform to the general style and arrangement of articles and notes in the current number of the journal. Maps, diagrams and graphs should be drawn in black ink on white unlined paper. Photographs should be on glossy paper. Proofs of all articles will be sent to authors and should be returned without delay. Authors of articles, but not of short notes, will receive thirty reprints in covers free of charge. Additional copies may be ordered, at cost, when the proofs are returned. The Western Naturalist will be published annually, and more often as required. The annual subscription is three pounds, which should be sent to the Editors at FOREMOUNT HOUSE, KIL- BARCHAN, RENFREWSHIRE. Members of the Renfrewshire Natural History Society receive the journal free of charge. Members of other recognised natural history organisations may receive the Western Naturalist at a greatly reduced subscription; for details apply to the Editors at the subscription address. THE WESTERN NATURALIST Volume Four December 1975 CONTENTS The Mammals of Kin tyre Dr. J.A. Gibson and Mr. Duncan Colville 1 The Breeding Bird Community of Farmland on Rhum, Inner Hebrides Mr. Kenneth Williamson 29 Intertidal Algae of Some Estuaries in Galloway Dr. Martin Wilkinson 42 The Loch Li bo Nature Reserve Professor J.C. Smyth 51 History and Topography of Loch Li bo Mr. Ian W. Grant 53 The Vegetation of Loch Li bo and its Management Mr. Edward T. Idle 58 Summary Notes on the Vertebrate Fauna of Loch Libo and Neighbourhood Dr. J.A. Gibson 65 The Coleoptera of Loch Libo Dr. R.A. Crowson 71 The Freshwater Fishes of the Island of Arran Dr. J.A. Gibson 75 The Romans and Strathclyde: The First Century A.D. Occupation Mr. Frank Newall 79 Notes on the Birds of Mid-Argyll Mrs Ida Rainier 95 Spiders and Phalangids of Inchcai 1 1 och , Loch Lomond II - Seasonal Activity of Harvestmen Dr. David J. Curtis 114 THE WESTERN NATURALIST A Journal of Scottish Natural History Editorial Committee: Dr. J.A. Gibson Dr. John Hamilton Professor J.C. Smyth DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, PAISLEY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, HIGH STREET, PAISLEY The Western Naturalist is a.n independent journal, published by the RENFREWSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, devoted to the study of Scottish natural history, particularly, but not exclus- ively, to the natural history of the Western area. Although its main interests probably centre on fauna and flora it is prepared to publish articles on the many aspects embraced by its title including Zoology, Botany, History, Environment, Geology, Archae- ology » Geography etc. All articles and notes for publication, books for review etc, should be sent to the Editors at the DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, PAISLEY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, HIGH STREET, PAISLEY. Contributions should be clearly written; whenever possible they should be typed, double-spaced, on one side of the paper, with adequate margins, and should try to conform to the general style and arrangement of articles and notes in the current number of the journal. Maps, diagrams and graphs should be drawn in black ink on white unlined paper. Photographs should be on glossy paper. Proofs of all articles will be sent to authors and should be returned without delay. Authors of articles, but not of short notes, will receive thirty reprints in covers free of charge. Additional copies may be ordered, at cost, when the proofs are returned. The Western Naturalist will be published annually, and more often as required. The annual subscription is three pounds, which should be sent to the Editors at FOREMOUNT HOUSE, KIL- BARCHAN, RENFREWSHIRE. Members of the Renfrewshire Natural History Society receive the journal free of charge. Members of other recognised natural history organisations may receive the Western iVaturaiist at a greatly reduced subscription; for details apply to the Editors at the subscription address. THE WESTERN NATURALIST Volume Four December 1975 CONTENTS The Mammals of Kintyre Dr. J.A. Gibson and Mr. Duncan Colville 1 The Breeding Bird Community of Farmland on Rhum, Inner Hebrides Mr. Kenneth Williamson 29 Intertidal Algae of Some Estuaries in Galloway Dr. Martin Wilkinson 42 The Loch Li bo Nature Reserve Professor J.C. Smyth 51 History and Topography of Loch Li bo Mr. Ian W. Grant 53 The Vegetation of Loch Li bo and its Management Mr. Edward T. Idle 58 Summary Notes on the Vertebrate Fauna of Loch Li bo and Neighbourhood Dr. J.A. Gibson 65 The Coleoptera of Loch Libo Dr. R.A. Crowson 71 The Freshwater Fishes of the Island of Arran Dr. J.A. Gibson 75 The Romans and Strathclyde: The First Century A.D. Occupation Mr. Frank Newall 79 Notes on the Birds of Mid-Argyll Mrs Ida Rainier 95 Spiders and Phalangids of Inchcai 1 1 och , Loch Lomond II - Seasonal Activity of Harvestmen Dr. David J. Curtis 114 Additional Notes on the Birds of the Island of Arran Dr. J.A. Gibson 120 EDITORS Dr. J.A. Gibson Dr. John Hamilton Professor J.G. Smyth All items for publication should be sent to the Editors at Department of Biology, Paisley College of Technology, High Street, Paisley Published by THE RENFREWSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY (Founded 1847) . 1975 The Mammals of Kintyre 1 THE MAmALS OF KINTYRE By J.A. GIBSON and DUNCAN COLVILLE Kintyre Antiquarian and Natural History Society Until quite recently surprisingly little seems to have been published on the mammals of Kintyre. Unfortunately Harvie-Brown and Buckley (1892), in their otherwise excellent book, make virtually no mention of Kintyre at all, and the early Clyde mam- mal papers by Alston (1880) and Boyd Watt (1902,1905) also give almost no Kintyre information, although in their defence it should be said that the authors clearly recognised, and drew attention to, these gaps in knowledge of their day. There are some fairly obvious reasons for this apparent past neglect of Kintyre. Probably the relative isolation of Kintyre from other parts of Clyde or Argyll meant that it was rather inaccessible to previous workers on Clyde mammals, most of whom were based largely in the central belt of Scotland. Moreover, the fact that Kintyre was divided between two of the Scottish faunal areas may possibly have made earlier workers slightly hesitant as to how best to tackle the task. Gibson, how- ever, in his detailed survey of Clyde mammals (1954), had no doubts in the matter. He included the whole of Kintyre within Clyde, as McWilliam (1936) had previously done with the birds, and made significant progress with information on mammal distri- bution within Kintyre and all other districts of South Argyll. To the best of our knowledge, however, no attempt appears to have been made to put together collected notes on Kintyre mammals until our own preliminary papers of 1972. Since then we have been able to add substantially to our information, so we hope the following notes will fill a significant gap in our knowledge of Clyde mammals. The area covered is the Kintyre peninsula, with Davaar and the Sanda island group, but excluding the islands of Gigha and Cara. These notes do not include the cetaceans, which are being dealt with in a separate account of Clyde marine mammals (Gibson, in press) Although there are occasional references to Kintyre natural history scattered throughout ancient documents, the earliest mammal notes of any real interest appeared at the end of the 18th century, in the Old Statistical Account of the 1790s, and Dr. John Smith’s General View of the Agriculture of the County of period can be Argyle (1798) . Other useful information of this 2 The Western Naturalist Vol. 4 found in the early Kintyre farm rentals and letter books of the Argyll Estate, kindly made available to us. All these sources make passing references to mammals, usually in connection with agricultural interests, as one would expect. In the iVew Statistical Account of 1845 two Kintyre parishes, Saddell and Skipness and Killean and Kilchenzie, give natural history notes which are quite outstandingly good for their time. The 1850s saw the start of a local newspaper in Kintyre, the Argyllshire Herald (now ceased), and in 1873 the Campbeltown Courier commenced publication. Throughout the years the columns of these, and later the Oban Times, have contained many scattered notes and letters which make direct or incidental references to Kintyre mammals. Many of these contributions came from the late Mr. Dugald Macintyre, the justly renowned Kintyre gamekeeper/ naturalist, who also wrote several books and contributed numer- ous articles to various journals, almost all based on his ex- periences of Kintyre wildlife. We both knew Dugald Macintyre very well until he died in 1957, and derived much additional infor- mation from conversations with him.