THE BUNTINGS 183 



cavities between heaped stones and boulders fragments of the scarped 

 precipice, strewn on the rough mountain-side upon Arctic fells or 

 the summits of our own Scotch Highlands, as well as on the flat 

 wastes of the desolate tundras either above or bevond the limit of 



w 



forest growth sometimes, too, amidst the driftwood of northern rivers, 

 or by the dreary northern strand, his nest is built. Where possible 

 it will be well concealed, which, however, with all the other deterrents, 

 has not prevented its being torn even from where it should be most 

 sacred our own soil namely though whether its owners, also, being 

 amongst the rarest and most beautiful of the bird denizens of this 

 isle, have, on any such occasion, been shot, to make that soulless 

 thing, a stuffed bird-group, I know not, and so say no more. 1 Nothing 

 has, in this way, been added to our knowledge of the bird's conjugal 

 or domestic habits, as, by patient watching, within the radius of these 

 activities, might have been done. True science (God's "good meat" 

 however the devil may sometimes "send cooks") would have acted 

 in this way. She would have watched by, not " obtained " the nest 

 that nest, so full of poetry as it lies where the bird has made it, so 

 prosaic, so positively distressing to the mind, when one sees it amidst 

 all the dry inharmoniousness of walls, floor, ceiling, shelves, glass ! 2 

 A detailed description of its composition and fashioning is to be 

 found elsewhere. 3 It may not be a finished structure, not comparable 

 with the highest examples either of the Bunting or Finch school of 

 architecture, it may even spite of its fox-fur and snowy ptarmigan 

 feathers, mingling, sometimes, with those of the raven be " rude " as 

 Professor Newton has (perhaps somewhat rudely) termed it yet still 

 it is a pleasing performance. More than that ! In the high north, 

 where the earth, hardly yet unchilled by the spring, spreads her 

 rudest and ruggedest lap, that snug little cradle, upon it, with its soft, 



" The dial spoke not, but it made shrewd signs 

 And pointed full upon the stroke of murder." 



2 " True science " would hardly object to the presence of one or two snow-buntings' nests 

 in a museum, where they, in fact, are admired by hundreds who can never hope to see them in 

 their natural surroundings. ED. 



3 See ante, Classified Notes. 



