72 Transactions. 



Society to give an impulse to that spirit of observation from 

 which such light is to be drawn. I would, therefore, call on 

 other unscientific members like myself, who can yet use their 

 eyes, not to be backward in giving us their simple notes of 

 fact. 



At Mountainhall, where we have a small shrubbery, an 

 old-fashioned bushy garden, some fine old trees, and two or 

 three fields in grass, with hedge-row trees, we have a fair 

 number of the birds common in Scotland. — The Magpie has 

 left us of late years. Or rather, I ought to say, it is almost 

 exterminated in this district by the cruel zeal of gamekeepers. 

 I am surprised that our proprietors allow such a style of 

 warfare to be waged against some of our finest species of 

 birds. — The Tree Lark. In a small grass field, much shaded 

 with trees, and sloping down to a marshy bottom — in the 

 neighbourhood of Mountainhall — I notice occasionally what 

 Bewick calls the Tree Lark. I am disposed to think, how- 

 ever, that that peculiar raising of the wings and fan-like 

 spreading of the tail, as it descends from its short upward 

 flight and song, which he considers a distinctive character- 

 istic, is a mere sexual affection at a certain season. — The 

 Missel Thrush is multiplying with us yearly ; and on fresh 

 gusty days, in the end of December and beginning of Janu- 

 ary, we have it regulai'ly in song. I think I have observed 

 that this bird sits an unusually long time in hatching, but I 

 am not prepared yet to lay this down as a fact. — The Common 

 Song Thrush, after its breeding time is over, disappears 

 from Mountainhall. Invariably, however, I find it back in 

 our garden in autumn, in "the drills of the potato plots, 

 where, I presume, it gets small slugs, worms, and insects to 

 its particular liking at that season. It disappears from us 

 again, and is away all winter — where, I cannot tell. — The 

 Common Gull walks our gi-ass fields, in the end of August 

 and beginning of September, every year regularly, for a 

 fortnight or so. It is there not only for worms and grubs, 

 but mainly, I think, for the crane-fly (commonly called 

 daddy-long-legs), which is found in autumn in great numbers 



