THE 



WILD SPORTS AND NATURAL HISTORY 



OF 



THE HIGHLANDS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I HAVE lived for several years in the northern counties of Scot- 

 land, and during the last four or five in the province of Moray, 

 a part of the country peculiarly adapted for collecting facts in 

 Natural History, and for becoming intimate with the habits of 

 many of our British wild birds and quadrupeds. Having been 

 in the habit of keeping an irregular kind of journal, and of 

 making notes of any incidents which have fallen under my ob- 

 servation connected with the zoology of the country, I have now 

 endeavoured, by dint of cutting and pruning those rough sketches, 

 to put them into a shape calculated to amuse, and perhaps, in 

 some slight degree, to instruct some of my fellow-lovers of Na- 

 ture. From my earliest childhood I have been more addicted 

 to the investigation of the habits and manners of every kind of 

 living animal than to any more useful avocation, and have in 

 consequence made myself tolerably well acquainted with the 

 domestic economy of most of our British ferce naturae, from the 

 field-mouse and wheatear, which I stalked and trapped in the 

 plains and downs of Wiltshire during my boyhood, to the red 

 deer and eagle, whose territory I have invaded in later years on 

 the mountains of Scotland. My present abode in Morayshire is 

 surrounded by as great a variety of beautiful scenery as can be 

 found in any district in Britain ; arid no part of the country can 

 produce a greater variety of objects of interest either to the 

 naturalist or to the lover of the picturesque. The rapid and 



B 



