26 FEATHERKD RKSIDENT3 IN THE GROUNDS OF TERRICK HOUSE, 



I have found the nest containing six eggs, none of which appeared to have 

 undergone the process of incubation in the slightest degree. 



Some difference of opinion appears to exist as to whether this species hoots 

 or not. Sir William Jardine says that it does, and that he has shot it in 

 the act. ''This/' observes Waterton, in his usual straight-forward manner, 

 ''is stiff authority, and I believe it because it comes from the pen of Sir 

 William Jardine;" but though he freely allows the faculty of hooting to this 

 one individual, he denies it to the rest of the species. Now I also most 

 implicitly believe that when Sir William Jardine made the statement he felt 

 fully convinced, and had every reason to believe, that that statement was 

 correct; and so indeed it may have been, but a circumstance, which 

 occurred to myself, tends to shew that it is just possible that even Sir W. 

 Jardine may have been deceived in the matter; for we are all, more or less, 

 fallible; unless we make an exception, which some will insist on, in favour 

 of His Holiness the Pope. The circumstances I have alluded to is this: — In 

 the latter part of April, 1851, I was in want of a specimen of the Sedge 

 Warbler, (Salicaria arundinacea,) and had accordingly gone out with the gun 

 to search for one; when from a bush, about twenty yards distant, I heard 

 its well-known voluble and imitative notes. I looked in the direction the 

 sound indicated, and there in the midst of the bush, which was an isolated, 

 and not very large one, I perceived what I considered could be no other 

 than the bird I was in search of, and to whose song I was listening: there 

 was no other bird to be seen, and the leaves were not sufficiently expanded 

 to offer much concealment, I therefore levelled the gun at this object, and 

 pulled the trigger; there was an explosion, a flutter in the bush, and the 

 bird dropped lifeless to the ground. Judge of my surprise when on picking 

 it up I found it to be not the Sedge Warbler, but a Willow Warbler, (Sylvia 

 trochilus.) I was for a moment fully impressed with th« idea that I had 

 shot a Willow Warbler in the act of singing the song of the Sedge Warbler; 

 and this impression would no doubt have remained upon my mind, but that 

 the notes were quickly resumed in another bush not far distant. The real 

 facts of the case now forced themselves upon me; — the bird I had shot must 

 have been in a direct line with, and immediately in front of, the bird I had 

 heard singing, thus concealing it from my view; and as the front ranks in 

 an engagement receive the first fire, and consequently afford protection to those 

 in the rear, so this unfortunate Willow Warbler received the fire intended 

 for the Sedge W^arbler; thus preserving, for this time at least, its life. 



Now there is just a possibility that such might have been the case with 

 the Owl shot by Sir W, Jardine. The Barn Owl was the victim, but the 

 real culprit might have escaped, and unobserved too, under cover of the smoke, 

 in the person of the Tawny Owl, as they might have been sitting "cheek 

 by jole" together, the body of the hooter covered and concealed from view 

 by the body of the non-hooter; for a non-hooter I most firmly believe the 

 Barn Owl to be; and did I constitute a jury, and were I called upon to 



