BIRDS. 



211 



" The nest is now in the possession of the Perthshire Society." Eheu ! 

 The tale was told, too, by Col. Drummond Hay {Perth. Soc. Trans. ^ 

 vol. i. p. 96). I have also an account of the removal of the nest by 

 an onlooker — my friend, Col. R. G. Wardlaw Ramsay — who witnessed 

 the cutting down of the tree. After that, I learned that "Orders 

 had been given by Her Grace — the Dowager-Duchess of Atholl — not 

 to molest Ospreys in the Dunbergh woods" (Atholl Macgregor, Esq., 

 in lit.). This order was given out in 1892, according to my informant. 

 Alas ! it came far too late, too late ! 



In a letter from the late Dr. Buchanan White, he deplored the 

 facts and the slaughter of the female bird the year before. But 

 he strenuously defended the society from participation in the killing 

 of the bird. I quote his letter fully here : " 25th Sept. 1903.— I fear," 

 he says, "that ornithologists may regard this nest as a shameful 

 possession for a museum ; but the killing of the Osprey was not our 

 doing (witness the fact that the owners of the bird will not part with it), 

 and as the nest would have perished, it was very good of Mr. Atholl 

 Macgregor to secure it for the museum " ; and Dr. Buchanan White 

 adds : " What a noble addition to the living fauna of Perthshire 

 it would have been if these Loch Ordie Ospreys had been protected." 

 The bird and two eggs are, I have always understood, in the castle 

 at Blair Atholl, or in the collection formed by the Dowager-Duchess 

 of Atholl. 



Now Col. Wardlaw Ramsay (who was present, as I have said, along 

 with Mr. Atholl Macgregor at the "cutting out" of the tree, etc.), 

 writing me from memory, says : " And along with the Duchess of 

 Atholl's gamekeepers we removed the Osprey's nest you refer to. It 

 was situated in the cup formed by the top of the tall spruce having been 

 broken off. The tree was close to the loch. The nest was very 

 difficult to get hold of ; indeed tlie only way was to cut the tree down. 

 The nest was, of course, much injured by the fall, but was success- 

 fully restored as you see it in the Perth Museum." Col. Wardlaw 

 Ramsay continues : " I understood from the keeper that he had shot 

 the hen in the previous summer and taken the eggs. But evidently one 

 egg had been overlooked ; for, when the tree fell, an addled egg fell 

 with it." Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! All I can now say is, " The pity of it, 

 the pity of it I " 



Yet one more link in this chain of destruction. I find that in 

 1887 — i.e. the year after the hen bird of this Loch Ordie eyrie had 

 been slain — an Osprey was sent by Charles Christie, Dunkeld House, 

 Dunkeld, entered under date of 11th June 1887, to MacLeay for 



