CHAP. XII] The Wild Duck. 215 
with clamor. The sandpiper screamed its kittie-needie ; the 
pigeon cooed ; the pipit, with lively emotion, came flying 
round me, uttering all the while its peeping note; the moor- 
cock sprung with whirring wing from his heath lair, and 
gave forth his well-known and indignant birr birr-bick ; the 
curlew came sailing down the glen with steady flight, and 
added to the noise with his shrill and peculiar notes of poo- 
elie poo-elie coorlie coorlie wha-up ; and, from the loftier parts 
of the hills, the plovers ceased not their mournful wail, which 
accorded so well with the scene of which I alone appeared 
to be a silent spectator. But I moved not a foot until the 
alarmed inmates of the glen and the mountain had disap- 
peared, and solemn stillness had again resumed its sway.” 
On the following day, while crossing the Clashmauch, on 
his way to Huntly, Edward observed a curlew rise from a 
marshy part of the hill, to which he bent his steps in hopes 
of finding her nest. In this, however, he was disappointed ; 
but, in searching about, and within a few feet of the re- 
mains of a wreath of snow, he came upon a wild duck ly- 
ing beside a tuft of rushes. It may be mentioned that there 
had been a heavy snow-storm, which had forced the plovers 
and wild ducks to abandon their nests, though then full 
of eggs, and greatly interrupted the breeding season in the 
Northern counties. Edward proceeds: 
“ As I imagined she was skulking with a view to avoid 
observation, I touched her with my stick, in order that she 
might rise; but she 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 somewhat 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 exception, to contain young birds. 
