144 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. xvnr. 



after year to the same pool for the purpose of breeding. Like 

 the wild duck, they sometimes hatch their young a considerable 

 distance from the \vater, and lead the young brood immediately 

 to it. I once, when riding in Ross-shire, saw an old teal with 

 eight newly-hatched young once cross the road. The youngsters 

 could not climb up the opposite bank, and young and old all 

 squatted flat down to allow me to pass. I got off my horse and 

 lifted all the little birds up and carried them a little distance 

 down the road to a ditch, for which I concluded they were 

 making, the old bird all the time fluttering about me and fre- 

 quently coming within reach of my riding-whip. The part of 

 the road where I first found them passed through thick fir- 

 wood with rank heather, and it was quite a puzzle to me how 

 such small animals, scarcely bigger than a half-grown mouse, 

 could have got along through it. The next day I saw them all 

 enjoying .themselves in a small pond at some little distance oft', 

 where a brood of teal appeared every year. In some of the 

 mountain lakes the teal breed in great numbers. When shoot- 

 ing in August I have seen a perfect cloud of these birds occa- 

 sionally rise from some grassy loch. The widgeon never breeds 

 with us, but leaves this country at the end of April. 



We have great numbers of landrails here in their breeding- 

 season. I have for several years first heard them on the 1st of 

 May. Hoarse and discordant as their voice is, I always hear it 

 with pleasure, for it brings the idea of summer and fine weather 

 with it. Oftentimes have I opened my window during the fine 

 dewy nights of June to listen to these birds as they utter their 

 harsh cry in every direction, some close to the very window, 

 and answered by others at different distances. I like too to see 

 this bird, as at the earliest dawn she crosses a road followed by 

 her train of quaint-looking, long-legged young ones, all walking 

 in the same stooping position ; or to see them earlier in the year 

 lift up their snake-like heads above the young corn, and croak in 

 defiance of some other bird of the same kind, whose head appears 

 now and then at a short distance. At other times, one hears the 

 landrail's cry apparently almost under one's feet, in the thick 

 clover, and he seems to shake the very ground, making as much 

 noise as a bull. How strange it is that a bird with apparently so 

 soft and tender a throat can utter so hard and loud a cry, which 



