116 NATURAL HISTOEY AND 



a poet as Cowper could class the call of these hon- 

 oured sages " even beneath the harsh tones of the 

 jay, the pye, the daw." Surely he could never 

 have listened to them under the canopy of heaven, 

 but only caught the sound from his own drawing- 

 room, with all the curtains closed. 



The country around this venerable castle seems 

 especially adapted to rear both white and brown 

 owls. A mixture of cultivated and waste land, 

 interspersed with woody dells, old ruins, and hol- 

 low trees, ought to have attracted them from the 

 mainland opposite coast, where they always breed ; 

 yet, though constantly watching, I have never seen 

 or heard either of the more common species,* 

 while the rarest (the short-eared owl) twice un- 

 expectedly presented herself on Kames Hill when 

 I was ranging for grouse. 



About the beginning of August 1864, I was 

 examining the ground with a view to the 12th, 

 and my dogs " poked up " this owl, when she flew 

 a little distance and pitched on the top of a bing 



* Some time after the above was penned, a white or barn 

 owl took possession of the garden-wall ivy the only one I 

 have seen in Bute. 



