WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS 



to it by the grey crows uttering their cries of alarm and war. 

 He went up to the tree, and close above his head sat a 

 great bird, with large staring yellow eyes, as bright (so he 

 expressed it) as two brass buttons. The man stooped to 

 pick up a stone or stick, and the bird dashed off the tree 

 into the recesses of the wood, and was not seen again. I 

 have no doubt that, instead of an eagle, as he supposed it 

 to be, it was the great Strix bubo* The colour of its eyes, 

 the situation the bird was in on the branch of a tall fir-tree, 

 and its remaining quiet until the man approached so close 

 to it, all convince me that it must have been the great owl, 

 whose loud midnight hootings disturb the solitude of the 

 German forests, giving additional weight to the legends 

 and superstitions of the peasants of that country, inclined 

 as they are to belief in supernatural soundsand apparitions. 



The hoopoe has been killed in the east of Sutherland, 

 on the bent-hills near Dornoch, and so also has the rose- 

 coloured ousel.t These birds must have been driven over 

 by the east winds, as neither of them are inhabitants of 

 Britain. Indeed, many a rare and foreign bird may visit 

 the uninhabited and desert tracts of bent and sand along- 

 the east coast without being observed, excepting quite by 

 chance; and the probability is, that nine persons out of ten 

 who misfht see a strange bird would take no notice of it. 



Last winterlsaw agreatash-coloured shrike or butcher- 

 bird in my orchard. The gardener told me that he had seen 



* The eagle owl, known in modern classification as Bubo ignavus, is a rare visitor to 

 the British Isles. — Ed. 



•f The rose-coloured pastor (Pastor roseus) is not an ousel, but nearly related to the 

 starling. It is an accidental, but not infrequent visitor to the British Isles from south- 

 eastern Europe. — Ed. 



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