76 Miscellaneous. 



Selkirkshire, one of the residences of the Duke of Buccleuch. It was 

 perched on some low alder bushes at the side of the river Ettrick, 

 and was surrounded by flocks of crows and other birds, loudly com- 

 plaining of his presence in that locality, their general feeling of innate 

 enmity being in all probability increased by the fact of his having just 

 lunched on one of them, as shown by the recent remains afterwards 

 detected in his capacious stomach. This noble bird measured no less 

 than 7 feet from tip to tip of his wings. I regret I have not been 

 able to get a more particular description of it, so as to fix beyond a 

 doubt the species ; but the appearance of any eagle is by no means 

 a usual occurrence in this part of the country. It is now, I under- 

 stand, in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch. 



I may also notice in passing, that a few months ago a specimen of 

 the 



Woodpigeon or Cushat, Columba palumbus, Linn., closely ap- 

 proximating to a white variety, was shot on the Gattonside hills, 

 near Melrose, Roxburghshire ; the head and neck being entirely 

 pure white ; and many white feathers were also scattered over dif- 

 ferent parts of its body. The bird was plump and in good condi- 

 tion, and when killed was feeding with a flock of wood-pigeons of the 

 ordinary kind. 



To the kindness of my friend Dr. Dumbreck I am indebted for 

 being able to exhibit a specimen of the 



Quail, Coturnix vulgaris, Flem., which is one of our very rare, 

 or perhaps from its habits, one of our less seen summer visitors. It 

 was shot in this county, near the Pentland hills, at Cockburn, about 

 three or four miles above the village of Currie, by a gentleman whose 

 dogs sprung it while in search of game, in the autumn of 1847. It 

 is apparently an adult female, not having the dark semicircular marks 

 on the sides of the neck which distinguish the male. In the follow- 

 ing year two nests of the Quail were come upon by the mowers, in a 

 field on Craiglockhart Farm, about three miles from Edinburgh, near 

 the village of Slateford ; and the poor hen birds were sitting so closely 

 at the time, that the heads of both were actually struck off by the 

 scythe. The nests contained respectively eight and twelve eggs, the 

 usual range of (he number being described as from six to fourteen ; 

 they are of a yellowish white, blotched and speckled with dark umber 

 brown (some of which I now exhibit) : and a friend informs me he 

 has in his collection an egg of this bird, taken from a nest found in 

 the neighbourhood of Musselburgh. 



I may perhaps be allowed in conclusion to trespass on your patience 

 a very little longer, with the brief details of a circumstance, and cer- 

 tainly I should think rather an unusual one, connected with the very 

 peculiar instinct displayed by some birds, in preserving their eggs and 

 young from threatened danger ; for an account of which I am in- 

 debted to Mr. Whitecross, Gunmaker, Danwick. The subject is one 

 which I am not qualified by any observations of my own to judge of; 

 but the facts are stated to have occurred as follows :— A pair of the 

 Common Sandpipers, Toianus hypoleucos, had a nest with its four 

 eggs, among the grass of a thinly wooded plantation on the banks of 



