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through tlie main range of the Pentlands, but Ring 

 Ouzels and Dippers were tlie only other birds, at all 

 peculiar to tlie hill country, that I saw. 



On leaving Edinburgh I went to stay in Cum- 

 berland, on the edge of the I,ake District, within 

 sight of the most beautiful of the lakes. Here several 

 Birds of Pre\^ are still to be seen, the first I saw being 

 a Kestrel. A day's fishing on the upper part of the 

 Caldew look me over fairly open ground, where there 

 was lots of heather, but here again very few Grouse 

 were seen. An immature one, picked up dead and 

 headless, showed how tender many would still be on 

 the fatal 12th, then only about a week distant. This 

 young one had only a few mature primaries, the others 

 being the freckled and spotted feathers of the nest- 

 ling plumage. Over the high ghylls and secluded 

 valleys Buzzards may still be seen soaring gracefully 

 on high. One of these birds gave us a remarkable 

 exhibition of one of the mysteries of flight. It was 

 within a hundred yards and on a level with ourselves 

 when we saw it first, but it mounted to a height of over 

 a hundred feet above us, and then sailed away over a 

 valley till absolutely out of the range of a binocular, 

 and this too, more or less against a fairly strong wind, 

 and with perhaps only six or seven beats of the wings. 

 The time taken for it to get out of sight was not 

 noted, but seemed to be about two minutes, and yet the 

 bird appeared not to be exerting itself at all. A visit 

 to the top of a neighbouring mountain yielded the only 

 sight of Ravens I got in the Lake Country, and I also 

 saw a Falcon that looked like a Peregrine. These two 

 birds one would expect to find at a mountain top, but 

 I was surprised to find, on the very summit, a Wheat- 

 ear flitting about. The Ravens I heard, as I looked 

 down into a series of steep ghylls with sharp ridges 

 and points, and on the first sound of their croak, which 

 I know so well, I looked out over the steep-sided 



