296 BIRDS OF ARRAN. 



having a few years ago found a sparrow-hawk's nest near 

 Loch Ranza, placed on the ground. 



KITE (Milvus vulgaris). Is now entirely extinct on all 

 the islands. It is referred to by Headrick in his work, 

 already spoken of, and also by the writer of the Statistical 

 Account of the Pariah of Kilmory, published in August 

 1840. In a manuscript account of the Natural History of 

 Bute, written by John Blain, commissary of the isles about 

 the year 1800, it is likewise specially mentioned and alluded 

 to as being dark in colour.* 



* This manuscript, entitled a History of the Island of Bute, and 

 forming a bulky volume of nearly 500 pages, formerly belonged to Mr. 

 J. Eaton Reid, of Glasgow, and was presented by that gentleman to 

 the Burgh of Rothesay. The following list of birds is given by the 

 author ; and I have the pleasure of inserting it here through the kind 

 permission of Mr. Wilson, Town Clerk : " Of fowls and birds abiding 

 or coming in their seasons, or waterfowl on or visiting the coast, we 

 have the gallina or hen, the turkey, tame goose, tame duck, red 

 game, blackcock and heath hen, partridge, blackbird, throstle, 

 green and gray linnets, goldfinch, bullfinch, starling, lark, corn- 

 bunting, house and hedge sparrows, sitta, skipper, oxeye, yellow- 

 hammer, wagtail, redbreast, blackcap, mosscheeper, wren, fieldfare, 

 cuckoo ; domestic, rock, and wood pigeons, land and water rails, 

 curlew, woodcock, large and small snipe, gray and green plovers, 

 raven, crow, rook, jackdaw, little water crow with a white breast, 

 magpie, jaepy, kite of a dark-brown colour, others light-gray or nearly 

 white, hawks of many kinds, eagle, falcon, the common owl, common 

 house swallow, the Held swallow, wild goose, solan goose, barnacle, 

 common wild duck, widgeon, teal, black and white diving fowl, 

 called here Danes, diving fowl with black and white breast, herons, 

 which breed in considerable numbers among the planting at Mount 

 Stuart ; allan hawk, with white breast and speckled back and neck ; 

 Heart, of dark -brown colour; scale drakes and ducks near as large as a 

 goose ; another sort of them, about the size of a common duck, which 

 the people have sometimes tamed by procuring their eggs and hatch- 

 ing them under a tame duck ; sundry varieties of the larus or until 

 kind ; sandlarks. redshanks, marrats, Ailsa black seacocks, sea- 

 parrots ; water hens, having scalloped webs along each toe. These 

 hens are all black or very dark -brown, only a white spot at the root 

 of the bill, but they are not to be frequently met with." It may be 



