BIRDS. 



203 



birch and oak. I could easily have shot it, but carefully refrained. 

 It was not with pleasurable sensations that afterwards I saw the 

 female hanging at the keeper's museum, alas ! in a far too far gone 

 state of decay to remove. I took a wing feather or two, but have 

 long since lost sight of even that little bit of evidence. I find on 

 turning up my old journals of date that I had spoken then of seeing 

 the female alive, but that was a distinct slip or error, because I clearly 

 remember even now, in 1904, that the bird — which twice showed itself 



A BIT OF THE BLACK-WOOD OF RANNOCH. 



{From, the birch woods of Croiiscraig, where the Author saw a $ Hobby in 1S74.) 



to me on the wing within twenty feet above my head — was a blue adult 

 male with a distinct black moustache, and for all the world like a 

 miniature Peregrine Falcon. I distinctly saw its back also. 



In the north-east Mr. Milne mentions one, a female, shot at Drum- 

 tochty in 1896, which is now in the Castle. 



Dr. Dewar marks it as "rare" in upper Forfar, and when doing 

 so is probably referring to the above, or perhaps to old recorded 

 notices of its presence in Banchory Ternan as follows : Mr. R. Gray 

 exhibited one obtained in Forfarshire at a meeting of the Eoyal 



