fC IIIK ZOOLOGIST. 



uing-feathers unspotted, and of a dingy white or hlae colour. 

 Tills curious bird is evidently neither a partridge, a grouse, or a 

 ptarmigan, and yet it has several points of resemblance to all 

 three ; and may peradventure be a cross betwixt either of them. 

 But the Ptarmigan, which is white in winter and grey in summer, 

 scarcely ever visits the low grounds; and indeed the general 

 opinion is that this bird which lingered long about Cairnsmuir of 

 Carsphairn, is now entirely rooted out of Gallowaj'. Of late years 

 it has never been seen ; but the severit}'- of last winter brought 

 many feathered fugitives to our doors ; and we knoio an individual 

 in Sanquhar, who obtained, last season, no feiver than ten brace of 

 Ptarmigan, which were eagerly purchased by stuffers and persons 

 curious in ornithology. Wolves, wild boars, and all those animals 

 that fly before the march of civilization, and seem exorcised by 

 the woodman's axe, can be easily spared, and are well out of the 

 way ; but to us, ' the universal feathered people ' are so truly 

 interesting, that we never wish to see a single bar in their 

 escutcheon, or a twig severed from the beautiful family tree." 



There is a reference again to the same occurrence contained 

 in the following notice of the capture of a Bittern, recorded in the 

 •Courier' for February 21st, 1820:— 



" The bittern, or miredrura, is so seldom met with in the south 

 of Scotland that it was supposed by many to be totally unknown, 

 but although the extension of tillage and other causes have com- 

 pelled this and other bipeds to return to wilds 'where things that 

 own not man's dominion dwell,' the chapter of accidents or the 

 severity of the weather is every now and then throwing a solitary 

 specimen in the fowler's way. The tremendous snowstorms of 

 1822 brought whole flocks of wild swans to our shores, and during 

 the same i^eriod three or four brace of Ptarmigan rvere killed some- 

 where above Sanquhar, although the opinion had become prevalent 

 that not one of these birds existed among the highest hills of 

 Dumfriesshire and Galloway. Some of the ptarmigans were sent 

 to our townsman, Mr. Shanks, to be stuff"ed, and we have just 

 been informed that Mr. John Lewars has a brace of voun« 

 ptarmigans alive and so tame that they run about the doors like 

 domestic fowls. These birds tvere brought, we understand, from 

 the English side, and ivere probably hatched on the top of Skiddaw. 

 But our object in lifting the pen at present is to state that a fine 

 bittern of the largest size, and the first we liave heard of for a 



