196 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



When the month of December is mild, rooks build, thrushes 

 sing, black-cocks croon, wood-pigeons coo, martin-swallows 

 sometimes appear, and even butterflies have been known to 

 show themselves. Editors of newspapers are often bored at 

 Christmas with accounts of some one or other of these won- 

 ders, which so often occur every mild winter season. 



Another intereresting section of the omnivora, the star- 

 lings, are very numerous in Bute. They come in clouds every 

 evening to roost on the old beeches and elms, close to and 

 even among the rooks. Hidling in their nesting habits, they 

 cannot be watched so easily as rooks ; but by the common 

 mode of fixing boxes to the higher branches of a tall tree, we 

 induced two pairs to adopt a ready-made home. I liked better, 

 however, to see them choose their own site among the thick 

 ivy of the garden wall, where several pairs hatched every 

 year. Of course my boys tamed one, which proved the most 

 pleasant and amusing of pets. It was early taught to quit 

 its cage in the kitchen and devour the flies, which were so 

 dexterously snapped up that one's eye often could not follow 

 the capture. The windows were never shut when " the stare " 

 was hunting, and it often flew round the lawn for half a day, 

 but always came back to its cage before dusk. Our starling, 

 however, was not sentimental, and if he had been, had no 

 right to the plaintive plea, " I can't get out." 



One feels a kind of reverence for those birds whose life is 

 spent in the silence and solemnity of night ; and the music 

 in which they vent their contemplations, though always in the 

 minor key, is listened to with more interest, and perhaps 

 scarcely less pleasure, than that of sunshine and the day. 

 The spectre - like ways and melancholy hootings of these 

 night-lovers please well the fancy; while the oft-repeated 

 plaint of the wood-owl, from ivied tree or mouldering tower, 



Port Bannatyne, close to this place. Another white-winged sparrow I see almost 

 every day when going to shoot in the north end of the island. The Port Banna- 

 tyne bird I saw all last season as well as this. I am, &c. 



"JOHN COLQUHOUN." 



