INTRODUCTION 



I HAVE lived for several years in the northern coun- 

 ties of Scotland, and during the last four or five in 

 the province of Moray, a part of the country pecul- 

 iarly adapted for collecting facts in Natural History, 

 and for becoming intimate with the habits of many of our 

 British wild birds and quadrupeds. Having been in the 

 habitof keeping an irregularkind ofjournal, and of making 

 notes of any incidents which have fallen under my observ- 

 ation connected with the zoology of the country, I have 

 now endeavoured, by dint of cutting and pruning those 

 rough sketches, to put them into a shape calculated to 

 amuse, and perhaps, in some slight degree, to instruct some 

 of my fellow-lovers of Nature. From my earliest childhood 

 I have been more addicted to the investigation of the habits 

 and manners of every kind of living animal than to any 

 more useful avocation, and have in consequence made my- 

 self tolerably well acquainted with the domestic economy 

 of most of our British y^ri^' natures, from the field-mouse 

 and wheatear, which I stalked and trapped in the plains 

 and downs of Wiltshire during my boyhood, to the red 

 deer and eagle, whose territory I have invaded in later 

 years on the mountains of Scotland. My present abode in 

 Morayshire is surrounded by as great a variety of beauti- 

 ful scenery as can be found in any district in Britain; and 

 no part of the country can produce a greater variety of ob- 

 jects of interest either to the naturalist or to the lover of the 

 picturesque. The rapid and glorious Findhorn, the very 

 perfection of a Highland river, here passes through one of 

 the most fertile plains in Scotland, or indeed in the world; 

 and though a few miles higher up it rages through the 

 xxiii 



