62 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



swallowed up in a stronger emotion, and even 

 the enmities among themselves are in abeyance. 

 Carrion-crow, and kestrel nest on the same fir 

 branch. The female sparrow - hawk blinks at 

 the sitting chaffinch, and never thinks of picking 

 her from the nest. 



The forms visible on the moor include, in the 

 order of size : meadow - pipit, lark, whinchat, and 

 wheatear : dunlin-snipe, and redshank ; merlin, and 

 kestrel; golden plover, and green plover: cuckoo, 

 lesser tern, Arctic tern, and common tern ; curlew, 

 and long-eared owl ; teal, and mallard ; sheldrake, 

 and eider. All of these in considerable, some in 

 very great numbers. At the bottom of the list 

 comes the eider-duck, with perhaps a score of 

 nests ; at the top, the terns, with more than a 

 thousand. 



The grouse, lately introduced by the proprietor 

 are spreading, and threaten a new incentive to 

 the poacher. 



