20 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



though the hills are enveloped in snow. There are now only 

 a few spots remaining along the Borders where these fine 

 birds are allowed to nest. Several of their former ancestral 

 strongholds now only retain such names as Ravenscleugh or 

 Ravenscrag to connect them with the memory of their 

 ancient tenants. The Raven is gone, and his place is often 

 usurped by a swarming colony of impudent Jackdaws in 

 the aggregate, a hundred-fold more mischievous than the 

 solitary raven. 



The Titlark is another of the spring migrants to the 

 moors. Early in March I have noticed hosts of them on 

 passage across the lowlands at Silksworth (county of Dur- 

 ham), but it is nearly a fortnight later before they appear, 

 on an average, on the Northumbrian moors. These birds, 

 as well as the Skylarks, Song-Thrush, Starling, and other 

 common British species, are extremely abundant in winter in 

 Spain, but do not remain there to breed, leaving Andalu9ia 

 at dates corresponding with their reappearance here. 



Among the earliest birds to commence nesting are the 

 Owls ; in some large woods which I rented, the Long-eared 

 Owls (Strix otus) were rather numerous, and exhibited some 

 peculiarities of habit which are worth recording. Never 

 troubling to undertake the construction of a nest for them- 

 selves, they rely on forestalling some more industrious archi- 

 tect : one pair (on March 19) were commencing to sit on 

 five eggs, laid in a nest which was built and occupied the 

 previous year by a pair of Sparrow-hawks. The Owls have 

 played their rivals this trick several times. The Hawks are 

 a month or more later in commencing domestic duties, 

 and when they return to their abode at the end of 

 April, they find that they have been forestalled by several 

 weeks, and that their patiently-constructed platform of 

 spruce-twigs is then fully occupied by a family of large- 

 eyed, hissing, and staring young striges. The Hawks 



wiser to omit names. If " naturalists " must all have collections, why 

 cannot they be satisfied with the beautiful specimens which are so 

 easily procurable from northern or eastern Europe, instead of hasten- 

 ing the extirpation of this, and other scarce indigenous birds, by placing 

 a high premium on their heads ? 



