CHAP, vui.] MIGRATORY BIRDS. 73 



have no doubt that, instead of an eagle, as he supposed it to 

 be, it was the great Strix bubo. The colour of its eyes, the 

 situation the bird was in on the branch of a tall fir-tree, and its 

 remaining quiet until the man approached so close to it, all con- 

 vince me that it must have been the great owl, whose loud mid- 

 night hootings disturb the solitude of the German forests, giving 

 additional weight to the legends and superstitions of the peasants 

 of that country, inclined as they are to belief in supernatural 

 sounds and apparitions. 



The hoopoe has been killed in the east of Sutherlandshire, on 

 the bent-hills near Dornock, and so also has the rose-coloured 

 ousel. These birds must have been driven over by the east 

 winds, as neither of them are inhabitants of Britain. Indeed, 

 many a rare and foreign bird may visit the uninhabited and 

 desert tracts of bent and sand along the east coast without being 

 observed, excepting quite by chance ; and the probability is, that 

 nine persons out of ten who might see a strange bird would take 

 no notice of it. 



Last winter I saw a great ash-coloured shrike or butcher-bird 

 in my orchard. The gardener told me that he had seen it for 

 some hours in pursuit of the small birds, and I found lying about 

 the walls two or three chaffinches, which had been killed and 

 partly eaten, in a style unlike the performance of any bird of 

 prey that I am acquainted with ; so much so, indeed, that before 

 I saw the butcher-bird, my attention was called to their dead 

 bodies by the curious manner in which they seemed to have been 

 pulled to pieces. Having watched the bird for a short time as 

 he sat perched on an apple-tree very near me, I went in for my 

 gun, but did not see him again. The tawny bunting and the 

 siK)w-bunling visit us in large flocks, especially the latter, which 

 birds remain here during the whole winter, appearing in greater 

 or lesser flocks according to the temperature. In severe weather 

 the fields near the sea-shore, and the shore itself, are sometimes 

 nearly covered by them. When the snow-buntings first arrive, 

 in October and November, they are of a much darker colour 

 than they are afterwards as the winter advances. If there is 

 much snow, they put on a white plumage immediately. I do not 

 know how this change of colour is effected, but it is very visible, 

 and appears to depend entirely on the severity of the season. 



