ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 115 



without the faintest glimpse of the bird it now became 

 my great ambition to descry. After two hours' further 

 hard walking, I had beaten a very considerable tract of 

 the hill-side, and nothing living seemed to animate the 

 scene, save a few pairs of the universal peewit, a 

 solitary wheatear, or the common brown linnet, one of 

 whose snug little nests I almost trod upon. 



The sun was shining with power not a breath of 

 wind was stirring the face of nature was serene, and, 

 feeling slightly exhausted with exertion, I threw myself 

 upon the heather, and revelled in the picture stretching 

 gaily from below. Extended at my feet, and sweeping 

 as far as the eye could reach, lay the beautiful Bay of 

 Firth its waters calm and placid as a mill-pond, and 

 its outline and its surface picturesquely broken by 

 numberless small islands, the feeding spots of cattle, 

 and the breeding haunts of gulls. A sort of dreamy 

 doze is half engendered by the serenity of such a scene. 

 Relapsing slowly into this condition, a faint and distant 

 cry, resembling a female hysterical laugh, assailed my 

 startled ear. Straining in the direction from which it 

 had proceeded, I quickly espied a large bird of the 

 hawk kind hovering over the summit of the hill above 

 my right; at one moment just about to soar, then 

 sinking in its flight and gliding along the brow, it 

 seemed evidently half inclined to settle on the heather 

 now steadily sustaining itself over some attractive spot, 



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