I N T R 0 D U C T 1 0 N. 
More years than I anticipated have been spent in describing the habits of the birds procured and 
the production of the coloured Plates for ‘ Rough Notes.’ During the time which has elapsed several 
other birds have been obtained, and it is now necessary that twenty-five years, instead of twenty 
as at first stated, should be given as the period over which my observations extend. 
The assistance of the men well trained in the use of ropes, from the llass Rock in the Firth 
of Forth and other quarters, whom I took with me, rendered the work of reaching the nests of the 
Golden Eagles on the mainland, and the White-tailed Eagles on the Western Islands, remarkably easy, 
all our attempts to descend the rocks or cliffs being made without a mishap. While in pursuit of 
Skuas, Fulmars, and other Gulls in the North Sea, I was luckily able to hire some of the most 
powerful double-engine tug-steamers employed at Yarmouth, and we met with very good sport, 
shooting and obtaining specimens. We also caught exceedingly heavy cod, and the largest silver 
whiting that have come under my observation, for several years during the fishing-season, when the 
immense flocks of birds were collected about twenty miles off the land, where the luggers from the 
harbours on our southern and eastern coasts, and the Scotch craft (numbering in those days 
about sixty or seventy), were following the course of the herrings. It is a remarkable fact that 
the commencement of all the gales and bad weather we encountered assisted in bringing us more 
rapidly towards the harbours for which we were making. 
To search thoroughly over the high tops of the Highland mountains where the Ptarmigan pass 
the winter months is by no means easy. Being, however, well acquainted with the parts of the hills 
they frequented, no accidents occurred, though, no doubt, we had some rather narrow escapes. 
Little beyond what has come under my own observation is given in ‘Rough Notes’; much 
information, however, is recorded that was picked up from those whose occupations have given them 
opportunities for making observations on the birds frequenting the hills in the most remote parts of the 
Highlands, on the marshes and low grass- lands in the fens, and also at sea in the fishing-luggers. A 
few extracts are made from two or three of our old ornithological authors, who described the habits of 
