210 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



third was chipped. So like the colour of the tree was the old bird, 

 that I would most likely not have noticed her had she not got off 

 the eggs as I passed within ten yards of the spot. Like a 

 thoughtful housewife she had prepared for the expected increase 

 of her family, for her larder contained a half-grown rat and a 

 shrew mouse. On the 24th I again visited the nest, and found 

 all the young birds out, and as lively as could be. Their appetites 

 seemed to be good, and a supply of eight young rats was waiting 

 for their next meal. Three days later the rats were all gone, and 

 there was nothing in the nest but a mouse with its head eaten off. 

 The birds continued to thrive, but some one having discovered the 

 nest, they were taken away as pets, and one of them is still alive, 

 preying on the mice in a hay-loft of a farm near at hand. 

 Instances of the Tawny Owl breeding on the ground are very rare, 

 the usual place for the nest being a hole in some large tree. I have 

 since, however, been told by a friend, who lives not far from Loch 

 Lomond, that one bred on the ground at the foot of a spruce fir 

 not far from his house, in 1879. We have all heard of birds 

 changing their breeding habits from necessity, but in both of those 

 cases there were trees of exactly the kind in which Owls delight to 

 build close at hand; and it would be interesting could we tell what 

 logical reasoning had induced the bird of wisdom to leave the 

 safety of the tree for the danger of a nest on the ground. 



Common Buzzard. — Buteo vulgaris, Leach. — The following 

 note, recently communicated to the Field by Colonel James 

 Colquhoun, son of the author of "The Moor and the Loch," is of 

 interest: — "On a precipitous rock at the head of the rugged Glen- 

 Finlas, on Loch Lomond side, a Common Buzzard has yearly built 

 its nest from time immemorial. Not having a good specimen of 

 this bird in our collection, I straggled down last spring (1881) to 

 the nest, which is simply a lilliputian eyrie. Having shot the old 

 hen, I found that in place of eggs (as I had expected) there were 

 three young ones in the nest. Thinking that the old male bird 

 would not attempt to rear the brood, and in order to preserve the 

 pair in the same case, I three times made the rough ascent to the nest 

 in company with the head keeper, but not even at two o'clock in the 

 morning was the wary bird at home. In the meantime, my father 

 wrote to me certainly to give the male a chance of bringing up the 

 nestlings. On returning to them two days afterwards one of the 

 young birds had disappeared, its remains shewing that it must 



