24' 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



most striking instance of the truth of this remark, 

 being quite unknown or occurring as a very rare 

 straggler in some districts, and in others positively 

 swarming. Wherever game is protected, the 

 magpie becomes one of the chief objects of the 

 keeper's pursuit. During March and April 

 trapping and shooting do their work fairly well, 

 but not so successfully as to allow of the keeper's 

 resting content. Many birds that have escaped his 

 attention and are then nesting have to be sought 

 for and destroyed, as every hawk in most keepers' 

 eyes, and every owl in many, lives only to be the 

 enemy of game. 



The first nest reported during the past season, 

 1896, was a carrion crow's in course of building, on 

 March 20th. The crow or " hoodie " is perhaps the 

 most disliked of all feathered vermin, and he is also 

 the most successful at eluding destruction. The 

 crow is a common breeding species on the hills, 

 nesting in solitary trees by the burnsides as well as 

 in clumps of trees and in larger woods, and by his 

 cunning he often successfully escapes destruction. 

 Yet he is the main cause of the mischief which so 

 angers the keeper. In spring and summer he varies 

 his carrion diet with eggs, and many a nest of the 

 red grouse he harries, sometimes carrying the eggs 

 to the neighbourhood of his own nest, but often 

 enough sucking them on the spot. In the case of 

 the carrion crow, at least, we must side with the 

 keeper. Can anything be more irritating to him 

 than to see a wood strewn with grouse eggshells ? 

 In the nesting season almost every wood yields 

 at least one crow's nest, and in many cases a 

 wood may be repeatedly visited without the 

 occupied nest being discovered. To obviate loss 

 in such instances some keepers destroy by shot 

 every large nest in the wood, and thus make sure 

 of preventing the escape of young birds. The 

 northern ally, the hooded crow, does not breed 

 in this area, but occasionally appears in April, 

 and again in autumn. I saw one on October 28th 

 last, soaring in company with a carrion crow 

 above one of the woods. The raven is still rarer, 

 but is met with at intervals, and one was reported 

 to me during the recent autumn from the eastern 

 flank of the hills. 



Our commonest hawk is the kestrel, a sadly 

 persecuted bird, and one of whose merits it is 

 exceedingly difficult or impossible to convince the 

 keepers. The kestrel generally reveals the secret 

 o£ her nesting-place by squealing in the presence 

 of an intruder, and too often brings about her own 

 destruction ; occasionally, however, she acts differ- 

 ently. One of the likely nesting localities noted 

 in spring was in a haunt at which a pair was shot 

 in 1890, and it was expected that the jackdaw's 

 nest occupied on that occasion would be tenanted 

 again ; this particular nest, however, remained 

 empty, and the silence that reigned on subsequent 



visits led us to consider that the kestrels had shifted 

 their quarters. Late in May, however, my brother 

 and a party were exploring this district, and 

 caught the kestrel sitting on six eggs in a hole not 

 a stone's throw from the former site. Two days 

 afterwards I visited the spot and found the eggs 

 warm, but neither saw nor heard the kestrels. The 

 birds, however, kept their charge in safety, and later 

 in the season my brother took five young birds 

 from the hole to rear as pets. 



The merlin is less common and more decidedly 

 local than the kestrel, and generally nests by the 

 sides of the small heather-clad gullies. On the 

 last da}' of April, a gamekeeper directed me to an 

 open wood clump where a pair of hawks were 

 evidently intending to nest, and on approaching 

 the wood I was greeted by the squealing of a pair 

 of merlins as they fiew above the trees. I found a 

 number of crows' nests in the wood, and had rather 

 a gloomy prospect in looking forward to climbing 

 all of theni during a shower of rain in search of 

 the merlins' eggs. I kept my attention on the 

 birds however, and presently observed one of them 

 hover above a tree and pass on, and I suspected 

 that the nest above which the bird had hovered 

 would be the chosen nest. When the rain abated 

 I climbed the tree and found the nest empty, but 

 clean, with the accumulation of pine needles. 

 On May 9th I returned, and entering the wood 

 cautiously, clapped my hands and saw the hawk 

 leave this very nest. I again climbed, both 

 merlins squealing wildly around. The nest con- 

 tained two eggs, and both birds kept careering 

 in wide circles around and above the wood and 

 occasionally alighted on the tree-tops during 

 my stay. On the 15th the keeper shot the 

 hen merlin off the eggs and sent me a note. I 

 visited him on the i8th, and went with him to 

 the nest again. The male had kept by the nest 

 for two days after the hen had been shot, but he had 

 escaped the keeper's attempts on his life and had 

 now forsaken the nest. On climbing for the third 

 time I took the four eggs, and examining the nest 

 carefully, I found in addition to the clearing out 

 of all rubbish an apparent interlacing of a few 

 additional twigs on the border of the nest, which 

 must have been the work of the merlins. 



A few days afterwards a second merlin's nest 

 was found amongst the heather — the usual site — in 

 a different part of the hills ; the eggs were taken, 

 but the birds escaped. In the case of a third 

 merlin haunt occupied yearly, I was not able to 

 find out the fate of the birds during the past 

 season. Merlins are less commonly met with in 

 winter on the hills, but a hen was shot on 

 December 5th last, near one of the local haunts. 



On the hills proper the sparrow-hawk is rare, 

 but this species also appears in pairs about parti- 

 cular woods at the approach of the breeding 



