126 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 



out of some of the jackdaws' holes : the injury to the heronry 

 from this cause must be very great, as the plundering seems 

 to be incessantly going on. 



I see that the peregrine falcon still breeds near the heronry : 

 a pair only remain in the rock, as every season they drive 

 away their young ones to find a resting-place elsewhere. 

 The barn owl also breeds in the rocks of the Findhorn : not 

 having towers or ruins to breed in, they adapt themselves to 

 their situation and take to the rocks.- 



The male of all hawks, I believe, feeds his mate while she 

 is sitting on her eggs. Whilst I was fishing in the Findhorn, 

 at a place where a great many kestrels breed, one of these birds 

 came flying up the course of the river with a small bird in 

 his claws. When he came opposite the rock where the nest 

 was, he rose in the air and- began to call loudly and shrilly 

 for his mate, who soon came out from the rocks, and taking the 

 bird in her talons flew back with it; the male bird, after 

 uttering a few cries expressive of pleasure, flew off to renew 

 his hunting. 



The time at which roe lose the velvet from their horns 

 seems to depend on the lateness or earliness of the season. 

 This year (1848) is backward, arid as late as the 15th of this 

 month I see that the horns of the bucks are still covered 

 with the velvet. In early seasons their horns are quite clean 

 by the 4th or 5th of the month. When the larch and other 

 trees become green, the roe wander very much, taking to the 

 smaller woods and grassy plantations in search of some 

 favourite foliage or herbage. A fine buck came to an 

 untimely end at Darnaway. Mr. Stuart, on his way to fish, 

 was going along a narrow footpath on the top of the rocks 

 which overhang the river, when his dogs, running into the 

 cover, started a buck, who, taking a sudden spring into the 

 footpath, found himself unexpectedly within a few inches of 

 Mr. Stuart, in fact almost touching him. Without pausing 

 for an instant the frightened animal with another spring 

 went right over the high rocks into, the deep black pools of 

 the river below. Mr. Stuart got down to the water and man- 

 aged to pull the roebuck out, but the poor animal was quite 

 dead, killed by the shock of jumping from so great a height, 

 although his fall must have been much broken by the water. 



When a crow leaves her nest on being disturbed, her quiet, 

 sneaking manner of threading her way through the trees tells 

 that she has young or eggs in the thicket as plainly as if she 



