ASSOCIATIONS CONNECTED WITH BIRDS. 245 



of spring and summer. The monotonous cry of the cuckoo 

 has nothing delightful in it beyond recalling to the mind 

 pleasing ideas of spring and woody glades ; yet I believe 

 every one listens to this bird with pleasure. From seeing 

 and hearing so many of them about the wild rocks and glens 

 of Scowrie and Assynt, the cuckoo now always brings that 

 rugged district before my eyes, instead of the tranquil groves 

 where I formerly had seen it. The nest, which of all others 

 the knavish cuckoo prefers to lay her eggs in, is that of 

 the titlark ; and in Scowrie and Assynt those birds abound. 



Another bird, whose cry is invariably associated by me 

 with one kind of locality, is the swift. I never hear the loud 

 scream of this bird without having some well-remembered 

 steeple or other lofty building brought vividly before my 

 mind's eye : thus, also, the martin and swallow recall the 

 recollection of some favourite stream, whose waters abound 

 in trout, and whose banks swarm with the May-fly and grey 

 drake. 



The crow of the grouse is as inseparable in my mind from 

 the mountains of Scotland, as the song of the ring-ousel is 

 from its birch-covered glens, or the spring call of the peewit 

 from the marshy meadows. 



There is, I think, great pleasure in thus recollecting by the 

 sounds and notes of living animals scenes which the eye has 

 dwelt upon with delight, and so constant is every bird to its 

 own locality, that the associations thus called forth are in- 

 variably correct. 



In preserving game, quiet and food are the two things to 

 be attended to. No animals will remain in places where they 

 are frequently disturbed ; vicinity to favourable feeding- 

 ground is also a sine qua, non. In large and extensive tracks 

 of wood where there are miles of unbroken forest, birds are 

 always rare, excepting indeed some of the far wandering 

 hawks, whose strong wings enable them to pass over miles of 

 country with little exertion. Even birds of prey are more 

 inclined to take up their abode near the outskirts of a wood 

 than in its densest solitudes. 



In winter large flocks of the long-tailed titmouse, the 

 golden-crested wren, and other birds of similar insect-search- 

 ing habits, flit from tree to tree, passing in an unbroken 

 multitude for hours together, hanging in every possible 

 attitude from the branches while searching for their minute 

 prey, and enlivening the solitude with their bright wings, and 



