THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 231 



form as much as possible, his bright yellow eye vigilantly watching 

 his adversary. When brought to bay, he defends himself valiantly, 

 lunging out wickedly with his long rapier-like bill, quickly recovering 

 himself in guard like a master of fence, and uttering such a dreadful 

 discordant outcry, that on one such occasion, when picking up a wounded 

 heron near a small fishing village, I was quite expecting the women 

 to come out, supposing a child was being killed. A heron roasted is 

 eatable cold, and that is all that can be said, though happily the 

 carcase is surprisingly small for such a large conspicuous bird as a 

 heron is in life. It is from being observable so far off and his known 

 wariness that often makes it irresistible to try and stalk the heron. 

 They are more easily approachable by boat, and at Lochgilphead, where 

 they are unmolested out of respect to the owner of the neighbouring 

 heronry, they allow the fishing boats to pass and repass them when 

 they are wading in the shallows of the loch without any concern. 



We always knew it as the corra-ghribheag (corra-kree-ack), the 

 timid or flurried crane. It is also called the corra-ghlas, the grey crane ; 

 and in the Gaelic Bible the corra-mhonaidh, the crane of the moors. 



A rocky peninsula in lona is named corr-vilean, the crane's isle. 



THE WOODCOCK. 



Gaelic, Coileach coille cock of the wood ; and Crom nar auileag, or Croman 

 coillteach the crooked thing of the leaves, or crookbill of the woods. 1 



Arrives in flights at the season of migration, but for want of 

 sufficient cover does not remain in any sufficient numbers to yield 

 good cock-shooting ; but the island of Jura is famed for this sport. 

 A party of peat -cutters came upon a young brood of woodcocks on 

 the mosses opposite the island of lona, and brought me one of the 

 young downy chicks they succeeded in capturing. 



1 Coillteach, of the woods, sylvan, is the original of the word kelt, ' ' the men 

 of the groves," the wild man of the woods, applicable to the Celtic races as 

 worshippers in the groves of oaks or as foresters and hunters, and most especially 

 to the inhabitants of the woody hills of Caledonia. Coille-dun or dunach hilly 

 woods. Croman is properly the kite, a bird now unknown to us, but is the name 

 commonly applied to all the larger hawks, as speirag is to all the smaller tribe. 

 The word means crooked, and designates the form of the hawk's bill and talons. 

 I may remark here that Highlanders apply different names to certain beasts and 

 birds in different parts of their country. Thus, about Lochgilphead the fox is 

 only known as the sionnach, "the old one" (from seanach), and the name mada' 



