93 



as a covey dashes out from amongst grey rocks and 

 grey lichens, and sails away round a shoulder or across 

 a corrie to a place of safety. 



Buzzards and Ravens, particularly common in 

 some localities, and almost entirely absent from 

 others, one may see soaring gracefully over the rocks 

 and crags of the lower slopes of the mountains, though 

 they are rare in the secluded parts. For reasons I 

 could never make out entirely to my satisfaction, 

 while I found these two birds common round the 

 edges of a forest near the cultivated ground, I never 

 saw them in the remote and desolate fastnesses where 

 one would naturally expect to find such thoroughly 

 wild birds; in fact I never saw them at all when far 

 in the forest. 



In days gone by, many a loch in the Highlands 

 was tenanted by a pair of Ospreys ; now, one may 

 almost say that the bird is extinct as a breeding 

 species, and last year I was informed by an eminent 

 ornithologist living in Scotland, that the Osprey had 

 nowhere succeeded in rearing its young. A solitary 

 bird is said to be left at one of the former haunts in 

 Western Inverness, but the well known locality of 

 Loch-an-Eilean is now no more the site of an eyrie. 

 Whether the bird will ever re-establish itself in 

 Scotland to gladden the eyes of the true naturalist is 

 doubtful, as even when all is done that can be done to 

 preserve the birds, they are molested by the would-be 

 possessors of " British-taken " eggs or " British-killed " 

 specimens. 



There still remains the rare Black-throated Diver, 

 a well-known species, extremely shy and wary in a 

 state of nature, and breeding only on remote and 

 elevated lochs. This species I have seen at com- 

 paratively close range, having come on it suddenly 

 from behind a promontory in a secluded loch in 



