2646 Birch. 



obtained, and proceeded upwards till I reached the summit of the 

 hill. Tired with the exertion I sat down to rest, and I had not re- 

 mained long in this position when I beheld two wild ducks moving 

 across the heath, accompanied by a brood of young ones : they came 

 onwards, not thinking of my presence, and, when within a few paces 

 of where I lay, I suddenly made a spring at the whole. What a 

 splutter ensued ! I succeeded in capturing two of the young ones. 

 How they squeaked, and what a melancholy noise the old birds made 

 when they beheld me handling them ! After admiring for a while the 

 beautiful silky down with which they were covered, I set the little 

 prisoners at liberty, and they speedily disappeared among the heath. 

 As I went on my way I could hear the quack of the old ducks, who 

 were no doubt busily collecting their young ones, in order to lead 

 them, as quickly as possible, to some friendly pool. 



May 17th. Towards the evening of this day, as I was crossing the 

 Clashmauch, on my way to Huntly, after having wandered about from 

 morning without finding a single nest, I observed a curlew rise from a 

 marshy part of the hill, to which I accordingly bent my steps, in hopes 

 of falling in with her nest. In this, however, I was disappointed : 

 but in searching about, and within a few feet of the remains of a 

 wreath of snow, I came upon a female wild duck lying beside a tuft 

 of rushes. As I imagined she was skulking with a view to avoid ob- 

 servation, I touched her with my stick, in order that she might rise : 

 she, however, rose not. I was surprised ; and, on a nearer inspection, 

 I found that she was dead. She lay raised a little on one side, her 

 neck stretched out, her mouth open and full of snow, her wings some- 

 what extended, and with one of her legs appearing a little behind 

 her. Near to it there were two eggs. On my discovering this I lifted 

 up the bird, and underneath her was a nest containing eleven eggs : 

 these, with the other two, made thirteen in all : a few of them were 

 broken. I examined the whole of them, and found them, without ex- 

 ception, to contain young birds. This was an undoubted proof that 

 the poor mother had sat upon them from two to three weeks. With 

 her dead body in my hand I sat down to investigate the matter, and 

 to ascertain, if I could, the cause of her death. I examined her mi- 

 nutely all over, and could find neither wound nor any mark whatever 

 of violence : she had every appearance of having died of suffocation. 

 Although I had only circumstantial evidence, I had no hesitation in 

 arriving at the conclusion that she had come by her death in a des- 

 perate but faithful struggle to protect her eggs from the fatal effects of 

 a snow-storm. There cannot be any doubt that the storm, which has 



