1891. Scotland.
Sept. 12
(No 2)
Larbert, Sterlingshire. - which has very dark meat and
a strong and peculiar flavor not at all agreeable
to my taste although highly esteemed by English
epicures. the Quail, which I ate in London, is
not unlike the Partridge but inferior. I have 
not tasted the Pheasant.
  Robins were singing rather freely about the house
at sunset and Rooks cawing in the distance.
There were no insect sounds whatever. I thought
I heard an owl during the night but if so
the bird was a good way off and I was too
sleepy to receive a very distinct impression of
the sound. My hosts says there are several
pairs of Brown Owls on the place and that 
he often hears them at night.
  We spent a long evening talking. Harvie-Brown
tells me that he has often heard the love-notes
of the European Woodcock. the male bird, he says,
flies about in the twilight at evening, usually
following a wood path or crossing an opening in
the woods, uttering, meanwhile, a loud grunting
note (which imitated) and also a whistle,
not like that of our bird (which I imitated to him)
but more like the call of a wader. He has never
seen the bird ascend in a spiral or circle high
in air and he is very sure that it makes
no sounds save those just mentioned. The latter 
are heard only in spring - in the mating season - 
and are, he believes, peculiar to the male.
The bird on rising, whether voluntarily or flushed
suddenly, never makes any sound save occasionally a
light whirring or fluttering.