Trip to Hawthornden  & Rosslyn
1891.  Scotland.
Sept. 7
Edinburgh. - A fair but not brilliant day, the sunshine
rather feeble and colorless owing, probably, to the
haze with which the air was filled. Rather warm.
  To Hawthornden by 10.50 A.M. train. Just outside
the thicker-settled parts of the city but well
within its suburbs, in a locality where the houses
were perhaps as numerous as in East Watertown,
the train passed two large grassy fields which
were simply packed with Lapwings. In each field
there must have been three or four hundred
birds. They were not huddled closely together
but on the contrary were spread thickly over a
space of two or three acres averaging perhaps
a bird to each square yard of ground. They
did not appear to be feeding but stood rather
erect and still in stiff attitudes reminding
me forcibly of so many wooden decoys. Their
attitudes were distinctly Plover-like but the
moment one of them took flight they resemblance
to a Plover was wholly lost. Burroughs exaggerates
the awkwardness of the bird's form and motions
when flying. it is quite enough to say that
the flight closely resembles that of a short-eared
Owl to which bird the Lapwing bears a by
no means distant resemblance in respect to
general shape, motion, and proportions when
on wing although the coloring, of course, is
very different.
  On reaching our station we walked down
a country road a little distance and then
entered a lodge gate whence the way led for