312 IV/LD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS chap. 



very act of being hatched, some of the young having just quitted 

 the shell, while others were only half out of their fragile prison. 

 Both old birds were running around the nest while I stooped 

 to look at their little black progeny, and were uttering a low 

 kind of hissing noise, quite unlike their usual harsh croak. The 

 mowers told me that they had seen several nests in the same 

 field, but had avoided breaking the eggs whenever they per- 

 ceived them in time. Though innumerable landrails arrive 

 here during the first week in May, always coming regularly to 

 their time, the period and manner of their departure are quite 

 a mystery to me. Although in general their young are not 

 hatched till the first or second week in July, they seem to 

 have entirely vanished by the time that the corn is cut : it is 

 very rare indeed to find one when you are beating the fields in 

 September. 



The partridges, here are chiefly hatched about the last week 

 in June. Like the landrail, the hen bird sits very close, and 

 during that time will almost allow herself to be taken up in the 

 hand, especially when near her time of hatching. They seem 

 to be quite confident in the forbearance of my boys, who have 

 an intimate acquaintance with almost every nest in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the house, the old bird allowing them to peer 

 closely into her nest, and even to move aside the grass and 

 herbage which conceal it, when they want to see if she is on her 

 eggs. A retriever one day caught an old hen partridge on her 

 nest, but let her go again on my rating him, without doing 

 more damage to her than pulling out some feathers. Notwith- 

 standing this she returned to the nest, and hatched the whole 

 of the eggs the next day. Had she not been so near her time 

 of hatching, I do not suppose that she would have returned 

 again. All birds have the same instinctive foreknowledge of 

 the time of hatching being near at hand, and do not, when this 

 is the case, leave their nest so easily as when disturbed at an 

 earlier period of incubation. Some small birds are much tamer 

 in this respect than others. A bullfinch will often allow her- 

 self to be taken off her nest, and replaced again, without show- 

 ing the least symptom of fear. Indeed, this bird if put into a 

 cage with her nest of young ones will continue to feed them as 

 readily as if her habitation was still in its original situation. 

 Blackbirds also are very unwilling to fly off from their eggs. 



