SPORT IN BUTE. 201 



on the ground, where their active feet and legs enable them 

 to chase their prey with great activity. Emphatically a ground 

 bird, the wagtail is not confined to winged insects, but feeds 

 much on worms and the eggs of land and water flies. This 

 subsistence does not cease entirely in winter ; hence it does 

 not migrate, or only partially so, from colder to milder places 

 in our own country. 



The rich fields of Bute teem with skylarks. These general 

 favourites feed in summer on the field insects and earth- 

 worms, in winter almost entirely on the seeds of annual weeds 

 scattered over the corn stubbles. Totally independent of 

 trees, they are the free songsters of the air, and from fields 

 without a hedge, or upland slopes without a bush, trill forth 

 their melody so charming to our ear, while the figure of the 

 little siren, twittering in a flood of light, is wholly lost to 

 our ken. 



The larks introduce the buntings, the first of the hard-billed 

 birds. Some of them approach the larks in their habits, by 

 living much in cultivated fields, and refusing to perch on trees. 

 They all have bills formed for breaking the rinds of seeds. 

 They also eat insects moderately. I have never seen the 

 common bunting in Bute, nor the snow species in winter. I 

 have an Albino of the former in my collection, shot by my son 

 at Fort- George. 



Immense flocks of finches congregate in Bute all winter, 

 and are most useful to the farmer, consuming the seeds of 

 troublesome weeds which otherwise would overrun the coun- 

 try. Where the land is poorer, the finches migrate southward 

 in winter, returning again to the north, when they separate to 

 breed. 



Greenfinches, and, of course, chaffinches, build near the old 

 Castle of Kames the goldfinch and greyfinch among the 

 whins of the neighbouring brakes. Although so hard-billed, 

 all these finches eat caterpillars and other insects moderately. 

 The truest seed-eater of the race is the goldfinch, its favourite 



