Birds. 373 



ous stores. Snow-storms may sweep every little bird from our hedge- 

 rows, yet how very rarely does this pleasant bird join the congregated 

 thousands in the stack-yard. His call-notes and lively manners give 

 animation to our fields at all seasons, and the bird is one of my first 

 favourites. Though fond of turnip-leaves and their bulbs, and young 

 clover and grain, yet he is not prone to settle upon the sheaves, but is 

 content to glean amongst the stubble. It seems to be very fond of 

 pease and beans, and subsists largely upon insects and their larvae ; 

 indeed its young cannot exist upon any other food, at least when they 

 are reared under a barn-door fowl. Nor do its good services end here, 

 for at all seasons it feeds largely upon the seeds of Polygona, and ma- 

 ny other injurious weeds which I am unable to name. 



The Quail is by no means common in this district ; only one spe- 

 cimen has come under my dissecting-knife, and the contents of its 

 stomach entitled it to be ranked among our useful birds. It was shot 

 during the month of May. I have seen specimens that were shot in 

 Clydesdale so late as the month of September; and its call-notes are 

 occasionally heard in our fields about the same time. Being a migra- 

 tory bird, and only occurring in sparing numbers, it cannot do much 

 damage to our corn-crops ; whilst the benefits which, like many other 

 birds, it confers upon us, are legion. 



The Black Cock and Red Grouse occasionally frequent fields ol 

 oats in the neighbourhood of their haunts, on the lower slopes of the 

 Lammermoors. 



The Water-hen. The timid gallinule is fond of searching stubbles 

 in the neighbourhood of its haunts, upon the gleanings of which it 

 fattens amazingly. The stack-yard possesses many attractions for it, 

 but I am not aware that it feeds upon growing corn. Some years ago 

 a lonely individual annually left the society of its fellows, took up its 

 abode on the banks of our mill-pond, and rambled about the garden 

 and stack-yard, till it was unfortunately killed by a man who was ig- 

 norant of the estimation in which it was held by every one about the 

 place. 



The Wild Goose. Small parties of some species of goose, probably 

 the short-billed grey goose [Anser hrachyrhynchus) or the bean goose 

 [A. segetum), often alight in our fields of winter wheat and young clo- 

 ver, and do them much damage by grazing on the tender blades. In 



