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LIST OF BIRDS THAT BREED ON OR NEAR THE 
SHORES OF A MOORLAND LOCH IN PERTH- 
SHIRE. 
By Lieut.-Colonel W. H. M. Duthie. 
I WITHHOLD the name of this loch for fear of the Birming- 
ham Oologist, who might make a swoop upon it, and spoil 
the charm of a place so prolific in its variety of birds that breed 
in its vicinity. 
, Although within five miles of a railway station, it lies lonely 
and secluded, bounded on three sides by heather-clad hills, and 
on the fourth by fir woods which shield it from the world, and 
with the exception of two or three sheep farms, there is no 
sign of human existence to be seen from its shores. 
Only two miles beyond the limit which I have prescribed to 
myself, there is a typical and romantic eyrie, where year after 
year, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, a pair of Ravens 
have returned to rear a brood in the home of their ancestors. I 
was tempted to enlarge my area in order to bring in this interesting 
bird, and had I done so, I could have included also the Kestrel, 
Tawny Owl, Stock-dove, and a few others, but I thought it best 
to confine myself to the smallest space (viz., one mile from the 
loch) within which the greatest number of birds breed. 
In preparing the accompanying list, many pleasant memories 
have been awakened of red-letter days, spent in the spring-time of 
the year at this charming spot. 
We remember with what a sense of relief we escaped from the 
irritating Peewits which had mobbed us all the way up the hill, 
and plunging into the wood we listened to the cooing of the Ring 
doves in the pine branches, and the twittering of Tits busy among 
the fir cones, while the wind stole through the trees with a sound 
like the sea on a sandy shore. 
Perhaps we see a Roe Deer gazing at us with her large lustrous 
eyes, and do not notice till she moves away that two others are 
with her, so marvellously do the coats of these animals harmonise 
with the colouring of the woods. We watch them bounding away 
