76 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



hopping from one crevice to another like disconsolate wrens. I 

 remarked particularly the unusually dark colour of their plumage 

 the birds being very unlike those brought up in cultivated dis- 

 tricts, where gardens, trees, and hedgerows attract this familiar 

 songster and its allies. This species seems more readily to adapt 

 its mode of living to circumstances than any other member of the 

 family. On Ailsa Craig, whence a comparatively short flight 

 would take it to one of the most beautiful and fertile valleys in 

 Scotland, it prefers the society of puffins and razorbills, and makes 

 its habitation among broken masses of rock beside these strange 

 associates. Even at an elevation of six hundred feet on this 

 solitary rock it will remain for months, undismayed by the frequent 

 storms which break upon its lonely haunts. Its nest is sometimes 

 found, too, in the dark caves of Ailsa, whose frowning doorways 

 would deter even hardier birds. In May of the present year two 

 pairs had established themselves in one of these dismal and 

 dripping dwellings, both nests having the usual number of eggs, 

 which were afterwards hatched. Yet even there, in its rocky home, 

 the mavis is not a less interesting or poetical subject than under 

 the "laughing sky" of Northamptonshire, where 



" Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush 



That overhung a mole-hill large and round, 

 I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush 



Sing hymns of rapture, while I drank the sound 

 With joy; and oft, an unintruding guest, 



I watched her secret toils from day to day; 

 How true she warped the moss to form her nest, 



And modelled it within with wood and clay. 

 And by-and-bye, like heath-bells gilt with dew, 



There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, 

 Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue: 



And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, 

 A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, 



Glad as the sunshine and the laughing sky." 



JOHN CLARE. 



Writing of the Thrush in the Hebrides, Mr Elwes says: "It 

 is extremely common in Lewis and Harris, but not so abundant 

 in Uist. I have often noticed them high up a mountain among 

 the rocks, where there was hardly a bit of heather; and I think 

 they are attracted to these sterile regions by the number of small 

 land shells which are found among the stones." 



