1598 Birds. 



The following extracts relating to birds will we feel confident be 

 read with pleasure. 



Black-cock.—" In some places, apparently well adapted for these 

 birds, they will never increase, although left undisturbed and pro- 

 tected, some cause or other preventing their breeding. Where they 

 take well to a place they increase very rapidly. 



Wood-pigeons. — " An agricultural friend of mine near this place, 

 who had yielded with a tolerably good grace to my arguments in fa- 

 vour of the rook, pointed out to me the other day (March 6th) an im- 

 mense flock of wood-pigeons busily at work on a field of young clover, 

 which had been under barley the last season. ' There,' he said, 'you 

 constantly say that every bird does more good than harm ; what good 

 are those birds doing to my young clover ? " On this, in furtherance 

 of my favourite axiom that every animal is of some service to us, I de- 

 termined to shoot some of the wood-pigeons, that 1 might see what 

 they were actually feeding on, for I did not at all fall into my friend's 

 idea that they were grazing on his clover. By watching their flight 

 from the field to the woods, and sending a man round to drive them 

 off the clover, I managed to kill eight of the birds as they flew over 

 my head. I took them to his house, and we opened their crops to see 

 what they contained. Every pigeon's crop was as full as it could 

 possibly be of the seeds of two of the worst weeds in the country, the 

 wild mustard and the ragweed, which they had found remaining on 

 the surface of the ground, these plants ripening and dropping their 

 seeds before the corn is cut. Now no amount of human labour and 

 search could have collected, on the same ground, at that time of the 

 year, as much of these seeds as was consumed by each of these five 

 or six hundred wood-pigeons daily, for two or three weeks together." 

 —p. 118. 



Turtle-dove, #c— " Though the turtle-dove never breeds here (Pro- 

 vince of Moray), and is supposed never to visit this part of the 

 country, I have twice seen a pair about my house, both times towards 

 the end of autumn. Last year a pair remained for about three weeks 

 here, from the middle of October to the beginning of November, when 

 they disappeared ; probably returning southwards, not being nearly 

 so hardy a bird as the wood-pigeon. Besides the wood-pigeon, we 

 have considerable numbers of the little blue rock-pigeon, breeding 

 along the caves and rocks of the coast, and feeding inland in large 

 flocks. On the opposite coast of Ilosshire and Cromarty, very great 

 numbers arc found during the whole year." — p. 121. 



II at I -bred Wild Ducks. — " Some lew years back I brought home 



