168 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 



C H A P T E It XXI. 



OCTOBER. -PART I. 



Migration of Birds Quails Arrival of Wild Geese White-fronted Geese 

 Arrival of Wild Swans ; decrease of Feastings of our Ancestors Food 

 of Ducks, &c. Field-mice Roe feeding- Hawks Peregrine and Wild 

 Duck Training of Hawks Migration of Eagles. 



OCTOBER is, in this country, one of the finest months of the 

 whole year. The cold cutting winds of November are 

 frequently preceded by bright, clear, sunshiny weather, most 

 enjoyable and invigorating to all whose avocations and 

 amusements keep them much in the open air. The birds, 

 both migratory and stationary, begin now to establish them- 

 selves in their winter quarters ; and scarcely a day passes 

 which is not marked by the arrival or departure, or the 

 winter preparations of some of the feathered races in this 

 country. 



On the 4th of October, during the mild season of 1847, I 

 found a pair of young wood-pigeons in a nest near the house. 

 A few day afterwards they were both dead, either from the 

 old birds having been killed, or from the coldness of one or 

 two of the succeeding day?. The latest landrail that I 

 killed was on the 6th, and a fatter bird of any description I 

 never saw. 



Three or four quails were killed at the beginning of 

 October, in the eastern part of the county. During the 

 month of May I constantly heard the call of the old birds 

 close to my house ; and we saw them several times basking 

 in the sun on one of the gravel walks. 



On the llth and 12th large flocks of wild geese passed to 

 the south. There was at the time a considerable sprinkling 

 of snow on the Ross-shire and Sutherlandshire mountains. 

 None of the grey or bean-geese seemed to alight anywhere in 

 this neighbourhood during the autumn ; but a flock of that 

 very beautiful species, the white-fronted goose, took up their 

 quarters about the fresh-water lakes. Being anxious to 

 procure one of these birds, I went the following day to look 

 for them. It is a long, tedious walk through the wild, 

 desolate country which bounds the sand-hills to the westward, 

 and separates them from the lochs and swamps which the 

 swans and geese frequent when in this region. After a long 

 search for the birds, a sudden gleam of sunshine showed us 

 their yellow bills and white foreheads conspicuously above 



