THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 223 



slender curved bill are of coral vermilion, contrasting with the jet 

 black of his plumage. His sprightly manner, as he alights on the 

 emerald green turf at a very short distance, and chaw, cliaivs at the 

 intruder with half-extended wings and inclinations of the body, render 

 him a charming fellow, once seen never to be forgotten. Three pair 

 at least annually breed at Iona. Two nests are placed in a sea cave 

 very difficult of access ; the third is on the tower of the cathedral 

 among the jackdaws, with whom they seem on the best of terms, often 

 feeding with them abroad, and accompanying them home to this 

 roosting place even when not nesting, and is the only bird admitted 

 to this privilege, all others, especially crows and hawks, instantly being 

 ejected on venturing to rest upon this sacred altitude. This reminds 

 me of my old letters to you contributed to The Naturalist, where, at 

 p. 217, E. K. B. supports my opinion against that of Mr Knox by his 

 own observations on the " friendly relations subsisting between the 

 two birds in question." Indeed, having referred to those letters, I 

 do not think I need dwell further on the subject of this interesting 

 bird, as I think I there mentioned all I can say on the subject. I can 

 only add that I have subsequently seen them in Wales, and also in 

 Cornwall, where a pair played around me on the green heights of the 

 fearfully wild coast between Tintagel and Bude. Their voice and 

 gesticulations seemed so familiar to me that they seemed to speak a 

 language that T understood, and I found it hard not to recognise in 

 them my own old favourites, who were expressing their surprise and 

 congratulations at meeting an old friend in the solitary pedestrian so 

 far from home. The red-leg, though not gregarious, does not avoid 

 society, but they mostly lead a solitary life, that is, in single pairs, as 

 if quite content with one another's society all the year round, appar- 

 ently very much attached to each other, and always full of cheerful 

 gaiety. 1 It is probable that in Wales and Cornwall the increase of 

 population and of cultivation is gradually reducing their numbers, but 

 I cannot see that such should be the case in our wildernesses, where 

 the population is rather decreasing, where a pair are hardly shot in the 

 same number of years, and where the cliffs, and caves, and hillsides, 

 though a good deal the worse for wear and tear, are otherwise in the 

 same condition as when first fixed up prior to Adam's time. 



1 In the west of Ireland, however, they are often seen in flocks feeding 

 together, and also in Cornwall. — En. 



