NOVEMBER 209 



are now strictly protected, and as their eyrie is on an 

 island in the heart of a deer forest, they do not run 

 much risk of disturbance. One cannot repeat too often 

 the appeal on behalf of fine birds, for, however unre- 

 lenting man may be in his persecution of rare animals, 

 and jealous of his assumed monopoly over common 

 ones, here and there an ear will hear, and certainly 

 there are more people interested in the matter than 

 there were a few years ago. 1 



It is a stirring sight to see the dauntless way the 

 osprey seizes his prey, dropping like a levin-bolt from 

 mid-air into the water, grasping the fish lengthways, 

 parallel with the bird's own body, with strong hooked 

 claws. Human artifices of nets and hooks and endless 

 apparatus, seem contemptible compared with such 

 chivalrous warfare. 



LXXIX 



Space, light, and cool still air, with mingled odours 

 from the brine and the new ploughing. Low in the 

 southern sky wheels the November sun, TneRutn _ 

 flashing miles of wet sand into dazzling wel1 Cross 

 radiance, and silvering the placid waters of Solway. 



1 At the very moment that these notes are being knocked into shape 

 for the printer, news comes of an osprey being sent into Inverness 

 from Moy Hall, the seat of the Mackintosh (August 18, 1896). No 

 doubt that this was one of the young hatched in the present season in 

 the Highlands. From the same source comes the melancholy intelli- 

 gence of the following victims to wanton persecution in the same 

 season : a Greenland falcon, from Portree, Skye ; a snowy owl from 

 Forsinard ; a night-heron from Barra ; a roller from East Lothian ; and 

 a hoopoe from Stirlingshire. 



O 



