474 PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



email birds, some Partridges, two Pheasants feeding in a 

 ploughed field, and a male Hen-harrier, Circus cyaneus, the 

 flight of which afforded a most interesting sight. First, it came 

 skimming over a field, almost close upon the ground, then 

 glided along a hawthorn hedge, now on one side, then on the 

 other, turned abruj^tly to follow another hedge, never flying 

 higher than three or four yards, and lastly passed over a large 

 ploughed field and disappeared. Its mode of flying was almost 

 precisely similar to that of the Sparrow Hawk, which, in like 

 manner, I have sometimes seen almost in the dusk taking a 

 last survey for the day of its hunting grounds, in quest of some 

 poor bird that, having imprudently perched in an exposed place, 

 might be within reach of its talons. 



It was eight when we entered Perth, and the journey by Dun- 

 keld and Blair, into the central group of the Grampians, hav- 

 ing been performed under night, little could be seen, although 

 it was clear moonlight, excepting woods and plantations in the 

 lower tracts, and in the higher hills covered with heath, of 

 which the dark colour contrasted with the patches of snow that 

 remained unmelted, with bare valleys in which not a hut was to 

 be seen for many successive miles. Day dawned when we ar- 

 rived at the commencement of the wooded part of the strath or 

 valley of the Spey, which, covered with heath, and straggling 

 trees of stunted birch and alder, presented a most desolate as- 

 pect, no doubt enhanced by a heavy fall of snow and a piercing 

 north-east wind. Farther on, the valley expanded, the long 

 ranges of low hills were covered with natural forests of pine, 

 the flanks of the higher mountains to the south presented 

 patches of dark woodland amidst a waste of snow, and the clear 

 streams glided over their pebbly beds amidst scraggy bushes of 

 birch. To the Celtic Scot there is something in the sight of 

 a forest of native pines, that have sprung up spontaneously in 

 the wilderness, stunted and rugged as they may be, that affords 

 as much delight as the scent of a distant oasis yields to the 

 faint and wearied camel in the sandy desert. In those wild 

 woods of Badenoch once roamed the wolf and the bull, and on 

 the slopes of those heathery hills browsed the stately stag, 

 while amidst the thickets glided the gentle and graceful roe. 



