secure some fresli booty. Aii instance of this is very amusingly 

 described' by the hitc Dr Saxby, in his account of the birds of Shcthmd, 

 in which, talking of the smaller Skua, Richardson's, or the Shooi, as it 

 is there called, he says — " To watch the Inrd among the Gulls is a 

 continual source of amusement — the robber sails smoothly about on tlu; 

 look-out for a m(;al, and at last sees a poor, industri(nis Gull carrying 

 liome a dinner or a supper to his family, and at once gives chase. No 

 sooner does the Gull ])erceive that he is the object of attention, than his 

 wings begin to beat with more than tlicar customary rapidity ; the 

 Shooi glides after him like an arrow, and the Gull finding his enemy 

 close upon him, drops suddenly for a yard or so. This causes the other 

 to overshoot his mark, and as he turns back the Gull reascends, and 

 the Shooi passes under him. In this way they continue for some little 

 time, the Gull jabbering all the while, Init jjresently Shooi gets 

 impatient. He goes straight at the Gull — all is confusion, there is a 

 sipiall from the big stupid Gull, and down goes the fish, and down 

 goes little Shooi after it, snapping it up long, long, before it reaches the 

 ground or the water, and making off with it in triumph, and almost 

 winking at you as he passes. The great blundering Gull flaps sidkily 

 away, uttering discontented and ruefid notes, which -would try the 

 gravity of a judge ; its queer gruntings and croakings seeming almost 

 to shape themselves into an aspiration that the fish may do anything 

 but agree with the stomach of the new proprietor." 



We will now take the resident birds, which are as follows : — 



The first on the list, the Heron, though a bird well known, is so hand- 

 some an ornament, and feature in the landscape, as he stands motionless 

 on the water side, that I feel I camiot pass over him without saying a 

 word in his favour. The Heron, I am glad to say, is in a measure still 

 preserved to us, not being a marketable bird, and there lieing also 

 several breeding-places or heronries in the upper districts, though none 

 of them of very great extent, where they are permitted to rear their 

 young in safety ; namely in Athole, an island on Loch Lydoch, where 

 they migrated, as was supposed, a few years since — their favourite trees at 

 the head of Loch Rannoch having been blown do-wn ; at Strowan, near 



