RARE BIRDS IM ABERDEENSHIRE. 139 



runs off into the valleys; the birds are therefore very little affected by a con- 

 tinuance of rainy weather, and so generally thrive at all times. Our coveys 

 are at times very large, and it is by no means rare to meet with several 

 during a day's shooting of eighteen birds each. I have known of a covey of 

 twenty-four on the 1st. of September, and that in a field close to this little 

 town. I should like to see a Norfolk shot after one good day's work amidst 

 our Welsh hills, where a covey once flushed take over a high hill, and require 

 a good hour's work to find them again. It certainly is most terrible work 

 on a broiling September day to fag up a hill, only slightly out of the per- 

 pendicular — a trying affair for a fat alderman ! 



Woodcock, (Scolopax rusticola.) — We have had numbers this season more than 



I ever recollect. Captain P. , a friend of mine, has bagged twenty-five, and 



other gentlemen in proportion. I was out the other day, and while beating the 

 bottom of one of our covers at Ffronffraith, the man said, "I saw a cock here in 

 brier bush a day or two ago;" he went up, and upon looking down into the 

 this briers called out, ^^and here he is now with his head stuck into a lot of 

 leaves." He was told to beat the bush, and up got the cock, and on being 

 brought to bag a finer bird could scarce be seen. This country is well 

 adapted for the Woodcock, being interspersed with wooded dells and dingles, 

 with dense underwood, and . there is hardly a hill side but what is clothed 

 with wood. 



Thrush, (Turdus musicus.) Feb. 6th. — This bird was singing loudly this 

 evening. Thermometer 42 degrees in-doors. 



Montgomery, North Wales, February, 1853. 



OCCURRENCE OF RARE LAND BIRDS IN ABERDEENSHIRE. 



BY MR. JAMES TAYLOR. 



Aquila chrysaefos, (Golden Eagle,) is still breeding as near us as the 

 forest of Birse, which is about thirty- eight miles from Aberdeen. I saw an 

 egg taken from their nest in 1851, now in the possession of Mr. Evan. 



Halireetus alhicilla, (White-tailed Sea Eagle.) — One of them, in his first 

 winter's plumage, struck against the Girdel Ness Lighthouse during the night, 

 a few years ago, measuring fourteen feet from tip to tip of the wings. 



Pernis apivorus, (Brown Bee-Hawk,) shot at Reeden in the end of the 

 summer of 1847, and now in the possession of Mr. Charles Black, gardener 

 there at that time. When shot he was covered with Bombus muscorum. 



Merops aplasia; (Yellow-throated Bee-eater,) (See vol. ii. page 204,) was 

 shot at Kinmundy, as recorded by Thomas Ferguson, Esq., Glasgow; and 

 another was shot in Forfarshire, in 1851, now in the Montrose Museum. 



Epupa Epops, (European Hoopoe.) — A specimen of the Hoopoe was shot. 



