6o The Scottish Naturalist. 



where they can rear their young undisturbed ; otherwise it, like 

 the falcon, would ere this have been entirely lost to us. 



12. Circus ^ruginosus, Sav. (Marsh Harrier.) 



An occasional visitant in the district, and, before the extensive 

 drainage throughout the country, was probably not unfrequent. 

 It may still possibly be found in some of the wilder parts of 

 Rannoch Moor, the very home for such a bird, but even there 

 the inevitable pole-trap would make short work of it. A very 

 fine specimen, in full adult plumage, which was shot recently in 

 the district, was shown to me in the flesh by Mr Malloch, bird- 

 stuffer, Perth. 



13. Circus cyaneus, Boie. (Hen Harrier.) 



In the days before keepers vied with each other in making the 

 largest collections of haaks, hoolets, and huddie craws, and nail- 

 ing them to their kennel doors, the Hen Harrier was far from 

 being an uncommon bird, either on the hill-side or the low 

 grounds ; and I have often in the Carse of Cowrie sat down and 

 watched a pair hunting a field, and a most beautiful sight it was 

 to see them working and quartering their ground like a brace of 

 thoroughbred pointers. But since about the year J 832 or 1833 

 they have got scarcer and scarcer till they have almost totally 

 disappeared, at least in the Lowlands. The female and young 

 were known as the Ring-tailed Hawk, and to the uninitiated 

 passed for a different species. 



14. Strix flammea Linn. (White or Barn Owl.) 



This beautiful and intelligent bird, so useful in the destruction 

 of mice, insects, and reptiles, more than counterbalances, as Mr 

 Gould very aptly remarks, any slight damage it may do by the 

 good it effects in the destruction of obnoxious animals. Though 

 strictly a nocturnal species, it has in common with many others 

 one great enemy, " the keepers' pole-trap," by which means, 

 within the last very few years, it has been, "shame to say," all 

 but exterminated. As a mouser, the wonderful quickness and 

 dexterity it displays cannot be excelled even by the cat, to which 

 I can well testify, as many years ago, when quartered on the 

 island of Vido, in the Ionian Islands, a young white owl was 

 brought to me from the nest. It was fed daily on mice, and was 

 never kept in confinement ; and when fully fledged, used to take 

 up its position on the back of a chair, or on the top bar at the 



