198 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



grouse with the same companion, close to " the hoolet's cairn," 

 as he called it, when of her own accord she rose at some 

 distance from us, and I shot her. It was but seldom that my 

 youngest boy was with me on my shooting excursions ; and, 

 considering my many trials for the owl with one or other of 

 his brothers, that he should have been the only one out the 

 day she fell, might have furnished good material for a super- 

 stitious Highland legend. 



The far more common long-eared owl I have never seen 

 when hunting there, but once or twice I distinctly heard its 

 scream close to the castle windows, and once my gillie lad 

 brought me a half-grown one, found in a dying state on the 

 lawn. It seemed starved to death, being a perfect skeleton, 



I have frequently listened for the drowsy " chur " of an- 

 other favourite bird of the dusk, the fearless night-jar. That 

 this migrant should prefer Mull to Bute, where night-moths 

 are so plentiful, seems to me unreasonable. Not one fern 

 owl have I seen or heard on the northern district of Bute, while 

 in Mull the monotonous spinning-wheel note was raised each 

 July evening close to both our shooting-quarters ; and I have 

 preserved the finest male specimen I ever saw, which I shot 

 one 12th of August, raised from the heather by my dogs. 



The more obtrusive and noticeable day migrants, such as 

 the cuckoo, the landrail, and the swallow tribe, seem to revel 

 in our neighbourhood ; while fly-catchers and white-throats 

 delight the eye with their graceful movements among the 

 laurel bushes. From entries in my journal, I find that, on 

 the 5th of May, when we returned to our island home, 

 " Cuckoos and landrails are in full cry, and chimney swallows 

 are flying in considerable numbers. Neither the window 

 martin nor swift has yet appeared. The gardener told me 

 that he first saw a swallow and heard the cuckoo on the same 

 day, the 30th of April." "Monday, 22d May. 1 Window 



1 A daughter of the late Lord President Hope gave me the following curious 

 and interesting particulars of a swallow's nest which she had often heard told by 



