18 AUTUMNS IN ARGYLESHIRE 



Most descriptions of hawks and buzzards are 

 fairly numerous, and none of them except the 

 sparrow-hawk are systematically destroyed. I 

 have watched many an interesting chase of the 

 peregrine after ducks, plovers, curlews, and terns, 

 and of the merlin after his smaller quarry. All 

 the Corvidse are tolerably common on the main- 

 land, with the exception of the chough, and I 

 have had opportunities of studying the glossy 

 plumage and red beak and legs of that interesting 

 survival on some of the Hebridean Islands, where 

 he was once far commoner than the mischievous 

 and now ubiquitous jackdaw. Sea birds of all 

 kinds abound, and I note with pleasure the 

 increase of the eider-duck, which is now quite 

 a familiar object in most of the sea lochs on the 

 west coast. The young birds when about three- 

 quarter grown are peculiarly helpless ; so much 

 so, that if, as occasionally happens, they are left 

 high and dry on shore by the ebb, they wait for 

 the tide to rise again instead of waddling down 

 over the sand. My son, the first time he saw one 

 of these birds stranded in this fashion, knocked it 

 on the head, under the impression that he was 

 putting a wounded bird out of its misery ; but 

 subsequent experience has taught us that it is 

 quite a common occurrence, and that it is no 

 physical injury, but mere awkwardness and 

 laziness, which prevents them from waddling over 

 the sand to their native element. Once in the 



