136 AUTUMNS ON THE SPEY. 



less timid descended again towards the water, 

 either singly or in reduced numbers, and passing 

 within fatal distance of a screen, would drop to 

 rise no more, until hy degrees even the last 

 stragglers vanished and all was over for that day. 



A year or two afterwards, during a long spell of 

 sultry, cloudless weather in the early part of Sep- 

 tember, I was again wandering through these 

 woods, with no companion but my spy-glass, in 

 hopes of meeting with my old friends the cross- 

 bills, Loxia curvirostra, or perhaps the still rarer 

 crested titmouse, Parus cristatus, which I have 

 never succeeded in detecting, although I knew that 

 the species had been observed about thirty miles 

 higher up the Spey, near Grantown, as well as 

 still further south in the pass of Killiekrankie. 

 After a fruitless search of some hours I found my- 

 self close to Ortegarr, and on this occasion with 

 the most friendly intentions towards the birds that 

 frequented it I commenced crawling through the 

 heather in that direction as slowly and cautiously 

 as possible. I was well rewarded for my trouble, 

 and succeeded at last in reaching a slightly ele- 

 vated mound, but a few yards from the edge, 

 where, through a vista between the fir-trees that 

 fringed the bank, I commanded a view of the 

 greater part of the little sheet of water. It was 



