VI 



EXTRACTS FKOM Professor MacGillivray's 

 Works descriptive of Bird Life, of 

 Personal Adventure for Scientific In- 

 vestigation, OR of Picturesque Scenes, etc. 



1. — A Night Excursion to the Wells of Dee. 



It is pleasant to hear the bold challenge of the gor- 

 cock at early dawn on the wild moor remote from 

 human habitation, where, however, few ornithologists 

 have ever listened to it. I remember with delight 

 the cheering influence of its cry on a cold morning 

 in September, when, wet to the knees, and with a 

 sprained ankle, I had passed the night in a peat bog 

 in the midst of the Grampians, between the sources 

 of the Tummel and the Dee. Many years ago, when 

 I was of opinion, as I still am, that there is little 

 pleasure in passing through life dry - shod and ever 

 comfortable, I was returning to Aberdeen from a 

 botanical excursion through the Hebrides and the 

 south of Scotland. At Blair AthoU I was directed to a 

 road that leads over the hill, and which I was informed 



