Northern Observations of Inland Birds 29 



the bird stands. Legislation may preserve a few, but 

 very few. The matter rests with land proprietors and 

 tenants — not with the gamekeeping fraternity. Game- 

 keepers are always ready to respect their employer's 

 demands, whatever their own sentiments may be, and 

 from my experience of the class, the man who has been 

 told that a certain bird of prey is to be preserved, will 

 guard it as zealously as he will guard his game birds. 



By nature the buzzard is anything but a shy bird, and 

 its methods of hunting render it comparatively easy to 

 study. I have often seen seven or eight of them soaring 

 together, and it is a fine sight to follow their manoeuvres. 

 The buzzard is at its best in a gale, all the mighty forces 

 of which are at its bidding. It will soar without movement 

 of its wings, now the merest speck in the clouds, then, 

 with a turning ghde it comes earthwards, larger, larger, 

 and again hangs motionless. Slowly, almost imper- 

 ceptibly, it is descending, then suddenly it elevates its 

 planes and comes straight down, still hanging over the 

 same point of the landscape. It seems merely to tap the 

 ling tips, then as it wheels upwind, across the pine ridge, 

 one at last obtains an impression of the prodigious speed 

 of that turning glide, which in mid-heavens seems so 

 slow and majestic. 



Not long ago (early spring) I watched three buzzards 

 soaring together near KilUn, and I shall never forget the 

 spectacle, for it was a scene well worth remembering. 

 It was sunset. The higher peaks were white with snow 

 — or rather they were crimson, shimmering, rampant 

 crimson, flooded at points with liquid gold, which seemed 

 to be gushing over their summits in living cascades. 

 Lower the slopes were pink, blue, purple, the shades 

 deepening towards the valley, while Loch Tay below us 

 with its pine-girt headlands was merely a cloud-like 

 shimmer of indefinite shades. Those who have seen a 



