94 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON 
examining each branch and twig; and then passing on, in 
one flight, to another birch or alder. 
It would take too long to enumerate in detail all the 
smaller birds common to the district, but among the more 
interesting, I may mention the delicate, long-tailed gray 
wagtails that haunt the rocky mountain burns; and the 
tree-pipit with his sweet song, often performed in mid-air, as 
he rises singing from a tree-top, and then sinks with out- 
stretched wings, the song drooping and dying with the fall 
of his flight. 
Bullfinches and redpoles are fairly numerous in the 
plantations, the latter especially, whose cheery twitter is 
often heard about Kinrara and Kineraig. 
The siskins come to the river-side alders in large flocks 
during the autumn, while a few remain to breed in the fir- 
woods. 
Those interesting birds, the cross-bills, are resident in the 
pine forests all the year round, but their nest is rarely found. 
They feed chiefly on the seeds in the fir-cones, and it is an 
interesting sight to see them climbing about in the tops of 
the larch-trees like parrots, stripping the cones with their 
curiously formed beaks. They are very bold, and allow one 
to watch them from quite a short distance. 
The snow-bunting deserves a special word of mention. 
A few pairs of these Arctic birds may every summer be 
found scattered thinly over the highest parts of the Cairn- 
gorms, in whose sterile slopes and craggy steeps they perhaps 
find a resemblance to the Arctic solitudes from whence they 
come. The nest is a very difficult one to find. It is placed 
far in amongst the loose stones of the mountain side, and so 
fearless are the birds, that, unless the female can be watched 
on to the nest, there is little chance of discovering it, as she 
will not leave the eggs until almost grasped by the hand. 
After the young are hatched the task is much easier, and 
careful watching will always reveal the position of the nest. 
The first nest from the Cairngorms was found on Ben Avon 
in 1893, and, with eggs and birds, now forms one of the 
beautiful series of nests set up in their natural surroundings, 
which is one of the greatest attractions of the Natural History 
Department of the British Museum. 
