370 Birds. 



The Magpie. Although the magpie occasionally pilfers grain from our 

 stacks in winter and spring, I have not seen him partake of such food 

 when insects and their larvae, worms and moUusks, can be procured 

 in sufficient abundance, and by their destruction he renders good ser- 

 vice to the husbandman. For these kind offices, the liveliness of his 

 manner, and beauty of his plumage, T wish the race were more numer- 

 ous. It is, perhaps, owing to their comparative scarcity in this coun- 

 ty, that I never hear any complaints from the hen-wife. 



TJie Jay. To my great regret the beautiful jay has been extermi- 

 nated from this immediate neighbourhood, but it is by no means un- 

 common in some of our denser woods and plantations. Fields of pease 

 or ricks of the same, in hard weather, constitute the only inducement 

 to leave its woodland shades, to live on the produce of man's labour. 

 Its insectivorous propensities are well known. 



The Starling breeds with us in sparing numbers : old buildings 

 and hollow trees being alike scarce. About the autumnal equinox, the 

 flocks which range our pastures appear to receive a considerable ad- 

 dition to their numbers. During snow-storms they forsake the inte- 

 rior for the sea-board fields. Having seen it mentioned that they feed 

 in the Hebridean stack-yards, I have made diligent though fruitless 

 enquiry to ascertain whether they ever do so in this comitry. It is 

 one of those pre-eminently useful birds which ought to meet with the 

 greatest encouragement. Some years ago a flock which haunted our 

 fields roosted for two successive nights in a holly hedge in the garden. 



The Ringdove. To trace the gradual dispersion and colonizing 

 propensities of some birds, is a subject well worthy the attention of 

 field naturalists resident in Scotland, where extensive draining and 

 planting have produced great amelioration in the climate, and variety 

 in the productions of our fields. The ringdove or wood-pigeon was 

 extremely rare in East Lothian about the end of last century, where it 

 now swarms to a most injurious extent. In the appendix to the third 

 volume of Professor Macgillivray's ' British Birds ' (p. 700), will be 

 found the reasons which I thought had led to this astonishing in- 

 crease : * more extended observations and enquiries in other counties 

 where similar improvements are being carried on, have since confirm- 



* 1 . The great increase in the cultivation of clover and turnips, which afford them 

 a constant supply of food during winter. 2. The great increase of fir-woods, which are 

 their delight, both for roosting and rearing their young. 



