244 PRACTICAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



represent a toe. But our business is to study nature. The 

 sun shines brightly, yet we miss the merry Lark that was wont 

 to cheer us in spring and summer, as it clomb to heaven sing- 

 ing its most pleasant song. Indeed almost all the songsters 

 are mute now, at least have ceased to emit their modulated 

 notes, which, although not peculiar to the love-season, are cer- 

 tainly not continued all the year round, as some assert, when 

 the weather is fine, and the birds are in good health. Black- 

 birds and Thrushes are in prime condition now, and yet their 

 songs are not heard in the grove or on the hill. From this 

 summit we see the Pentlands. A white mist covers the highest, 

 and shoots out into the free space ; but although it ever ad- 

 vances it makes no progress. It is what meteorologists have 

 named a parasitic cloud, and is very common in mountainous 

 countries. I have often seen it stretch for half a mile from the 

 brow of Ben Capval, an isolated hill in the Hebrides. The 

 aqueous particles dissolve in the air when they have advanced 

 to a certain distance. 



Let us descend and enter Braid Wood, where, I believe, 

 some rare birds are to be found. 



Not rare, but curious. The Gold-crested Wren, the Creeper, 

 sometimes an Owl, and not unfrequently a Dipper by the 

 brook. There, a Pheasant has sprung from among the grass, and 

 flies to the wood with a heavy direct flight, its neck and tail 

 stretched out. We are not qualified to shoot game, and there- 

 fore do not interfere with the rights of others. 



There is a flock of very small birds scattered among the fir 

 trees, so busily occupied that they pay no attention to us al- 

 though we are beneath them. They search among the twigs, 

 for insects I suppose, hang in various attitudes, and utter a 

 feeble and shrill cheep, somewhat resembling that of a mouse. 



These are the Gold-crested Wrens of which I spoke. There, 

 two of them are shot. See w^hat diminutive things, and with 

 what a glowing crest of yellow and orange silky feathers. 

 There are also Black Tits, and a few Blue among them. 

 These birds pick up the insects and pupae that have found re- 

 fuge among the leaves and on the twigs ; while that equally 

 small bird, which you see running up the trunk of that oak, 



