90 WFLD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



crows and other egg-eating birds would leave but few to be 

 hatched. 



The larger birds, the size of whose nests does not admit of 

 their concealment, generally take some precautions to add to 

 theif safety. A raven, which builds in a tree, invariably fixes 

 on the one that is most difficult to climb. She takes up her 

 abode in one whose large size and smooth trunk, devoid of 

 branches, set at defiance the utmost efforts of the most expert 

 climbers of the village school. When she builds on a cliff, she 

 fixes on a niche protected by §ome projection of the rock from 

 all attacks both from above and below, at the same time 

 choosing, the most inaccessible part of the precipice. The 

 falcon and eagle do the same. The magpie seems to depend 

 more on the fortification of brambles and thorns with which 

 she surrounds her nest than the situation which she fixes upon. 

 There is one kind of swallow which breeds very frequently 

 about the caves and rocks on the sea-shore here. It is almost 

 impossible to distinguish the nest of this bird, owing to her 

 choosing some inequality of the rock to hide the outline of her 

 building, which is composed of mud and clay of exactly the 

 same colour as the rock itself. 



In fine, though some birds build a more simple and exposed 

 nest than others, there are very few which do not take some 

 precaution for their safety, or whose eggs and young do not 

 resemble in colour the substances by which they are surrounded. 

 The care of the common rabbit, in conceaHng and smoothing 

 over the entrance of the hole where her young are deposited, is 

 very remarkable, and doubtless saves them from the attacks of 

 almost all their enemies, with the exception of the wily fox, 

 whose fine scent enables him to discover their exact situation, 

 and who in digging them out, instead of following the hole in 

 his excavations, discovers the exact spot under which they are, 

 and then digs down directly on them, thus saving himself a 

 great deal of labour. 



The fox chooses the most unlikely places and holes to 

 produce her young cubs in ; generally in some deep and 

 inaccessible earth, where no digging can get at them, owing to 

 the intervention of rocks or roots of trees. I once, however, 

 two years ago, found three young foxes about two days old, 

 laid iffl ^comfcrtabje.nest- in some long heather, instead of the 



