204 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. 



scarcely any two of them will be found in the same key. 

 There are also prominent and exceptional points of difference 

 in the call of a particular cuckoo, as well as in the hoot of an 

 eccentric ivy owl. 



A cuckoo that haunted our garden all one spring and sum- 

 mer, and was most useful in grubbing up the cabbage and 

 gooseberry caterpillars, put an additional note into its pipe. 

 When a neighbour cuckoo from the near hill, and another 

 from the beeches on the lawn, struck up the rubrical coo-coo, 

 they were always replied to by the innovator's coo-coo-coo. 

 We made him a D.D., and the " Dr " had perhaps as much 

 reason for the change in his ritual as if his degree had corne 

 from the Senatus of Edinburgh University itself. When fish- 

 ing St Mary's Loch with a friend, the cracked voice of one 

 cuckoo contrasted oddly with half-a-dozen others scattered 

 through the neighbouring woods. We were lashing opposite 

 sides of the loch, and the first question asked on meeting was 

 " Did you hear the cracked cuckoo ? " 



Although living close to the old trees where the brown owls 

 hoot every night, some people are so unobservant as never to 

 have remarked that the " dismal bird " has two calls. The 

 first is one prolonged note, followed a few seconds after by a 

 juggling imitation. The owl then rests its voice a longer or 

 shorter time according to its whim, without any approach to 

 regularity in these intervals. But not to hear the second 

 trembling hoot of a brown owl immediately following the first 

 clear note, is rare indeed ; and I have only remarked this in 

 the case of one or two innovating owls among the many I 

 have listened to under the spring or autumnal moonshine. 



There are no rock-doves in Bute, but great numbers of ring- 

 doves (the common wood-pigeon) fully supply their place. All 

 spring the groves are soothed with the love-note of this orna- 

 mental bird ; and when we were searching for vermin in May, 

 the constant crash of the wood-dove from her wicker saucer of 

 two eggs, gave token of flocks that would congregate in au- 



