Birds. 2643 



Occasionally he tears himself, as it were, from the employment to 

 which necessity compels him, and slakes his thirst for the contempla- 

 tion of zoological scenes and objects by a solitary ramble amid the 

 mountains and hills, which so greatly abound in the upper portion of 

 the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. Of some of his adventures during 

 a ramble of this description, in the spring of the present year, he sent 

 me an account. This I considered so interesting, that I have re- 

 written it, and now submit it for insertion in the ' Zoologist.' The 

 facts, the ideas and the reflections are all his own, and in many parts 

 I have retained his own expressions. Upon the accuracy and the 

 minuteness of his observations, and upon his veracity of character, 

 the utmost reliance may at all times be placed. Some of the moun- 

 tains which he traversed are of great elevation : their names are 

 Gaelic. In the part of the county of Aberdeen where I reside my- 

 self,* and down to the very shore, and along all the eastern coast as 

 far as the Firth of Forth, the names of hills, rivers, and other of the 

 more conspicuous objects in Nature, as also the designations of landed 

 estates and even of many of the farms, are to this day either in the 

 Gaelic or in the Welsh language, — proving, in the clearest manner, 

 that the country in early times was occupied by a Celtic race, and 

 that its present Teutonic inhabitants are of more recent introduction. 

 The Picts are supposed to have been a colony of the ancient Cimbri, 

 and to have had possession, for a length of time, of the eastern coast 

 of Scotland, — 'the mouth of a river' in their language being aber, 

 and in that of the Gael inner. On being driven from these territories, 

 it is believed that they were some time in Cumberland, ' the land of 

 the Cymbri,' and that they finally settled in Wales, the modern Welsh 

 calling themselves Cymry to the present hour, and aber occurring as 

 frequently in proper names in Wales as it does along the eastern 

 coast of Scotland. — James Smith; Manse of Monquhitter by Turriff, 

 Aberdeenshire, November 21, 1849.] 



May 14th, 1849. In a ramble among the hills to-day, I had the 

 good fortune to find a curlew's nest with four eggs, a plover's {Chara- 

 drius pluvialis) with the same number, and a wild duck's with ten. 



* Monquhitter : the name of this parish is Gaelic, and it ought — I am informed 

 by good Gaelic scholars, for I do not understand the language myself— to be spelled 

 with the letter /, instead of quh ; quh occurring in Saxon and not in Gaelic words. 

 The meaning is said to be, ' the moss where the deer assemble.' This name, I can 

 easily conceive, was in remote ages eminently descriptive of the locality. 



