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kept at the Craigdarroch lun, Mouiaive. It was allowed perfect free- 

 dom, but never attempted to escape. One Lamb Fair day a shep- 

 herd's dog, having stolen a piece of beef, retired to a quiet corner of 

 the inn yard to eat it. The " Gled " happened to be perched on 

 the roof of an adjoining outhouse at the time, and the dog had no 

 sooner squatted with his prize than the " Gled " swooped down 

 upon him, seized the piece of beef, and bore it off to his perch, 

 the startled collie meanwhile bolting up the nearest passage. The 

 Common Buzzard {Buteo vulgaris) is said to have been common 

 thirty or forty years ago, but it is rarely met with now, and I have 

 never seen the bird personallJ^ The gamekeeper on the Craigdar- 

 roch estate informs me that he has once or twice seen a pair of 

 Buzzards " sailing " down the glen as far as Craigdarroch, but they 

 always turned there and made away back again. When seen it 

 has always been during the winter months, and there is not the 

 least likelihood of the bird being met with as a nesting species. 



Nocturnal birds of prey are represented by four species : The 

 Long-Eared Owl [Otus vulgaris), which is not common ; the Short- 

 Eared Owl ((9/?/^ Brachyotus), rarer still; the Barn Owl [Strix 

 Flanwica), which, down to a few years ago, nested regularly at 

 Hastings Hall ; and last, the Tawny Owl {Syrniuni Stridula), 

 our only really common species. The Spotted Flycatcher 

 {Muscicapa Grisola) may be considered common. It is a bird 

 unconventional alike in its choice of nest sites and its selection of 

 materials. Some years ago we found a nest in the vicinity of a 

 joiner's workshop, built entirely of shavings, and placed in the 

 crevice of a stoTie bridge. 



The Common Dipper {Cinclus Aquaticus), a bird often spoken 

 of as scarce, is common in Glencairn. It is met with along all our 

 streams, and there are few places suited to its habits where I could 

 not undertake to find a nest. It is one of our earliest nesting 

 species, and often has its young hatched before the majority of our 

 birds have even thought about egg-laying. I knew a nest this 

 year in which the brood was hatched during the third week of 

 April. It is unaccountable to me how the Dipper is so often 

 overlooked as a songster. An attractive bird, with a good deal of 

 individuality about it, and therefore often described, it is at the 

 some time but rarely we see it referred to as a singer. Thus, for 

 instance, in a scries of well-written articles on bird life lately con- 

 tributed to Good Words, the writer includes the Dipper in his 

 list of winter residents, but omits it in his list of winter songsters, 



