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deer-forests are tlie salvation of sucli birds as the Kite, the Kestrel, 
and the Merlin, which are rigorously kept down on preserved 
Grouse-moors ; and what these moors are, may be judged from the 
fact that fifteen huncbed brace, or even more, in a season is a 
moderate bag for a first-class moor. 
I had expected to find the Buzzard common, having on a previous 
visit to Scotland seen several (and, as I recollect, three nailed to a 
barn-door, with lesser fry, too far gone to skin ) ; but I only saw one 
at Ku-riemuir. 
Of small birds the Titlark is the most abundant, and the 
Chaffinch where there are trees ; and the King Ouzel, and the 
Water Ouzel, or “Water-Crow” as the natives term it, are of 
course two of the most characteristic birds of the valley. The 
Ptarmigan is found in some plenty on one or two of the taller 
mountains; in one day Ave saAV about forty, exactly like the 
cairns of boulders Avhich they inhabit, a Avonderful protection 
for them from birds of prey Avhen there is no other shelter 
Avhatever. In another search after them Ave only saAV twelve. 
As the Ptarmigan takes the tops of the mountains, and the 
Grouse takes the loAver slopes, so the Black Grouse keep to the 
Avoods in the valleys. I am told there is sometimes a separation of 
the sexes in this species ; and to a certain extent I noticed it at 
Clova, the males frequenting a Avood by themselves, and the 
females another Avood by themselves. Eight doAvn to the valley 
you find the Black Grouse, and even beloAV them, as it Avere, the 
common Partridge, puny insignificant birds compared to the plump 
felloAvs Ave are accustomed to in the turnip-fields of Korfolk. 
A great triumph Avas the shooting of an old cock Capercaillie. 
It Avas sitting on a middle-sized Larch tree, near the top, and its 
crop Avas full of the Larch needles on Avhich it had been regaling. 
Its Aveight Avas seven and three-quarter pounds. At Dunira, in 
Perthshire, they arc so common that thirty have been shot in a day ; 
and as many as nineteen Avere shot there this season ; so much have 
they spread since they Av^ere reintroduced into Scotland by the 
Marquis of Breadalbane and Sir T. F. Buxton forty-four years ago.* 
Clova is thirty-five miles from Avhere they Avere introduced. 
* The subject is very thoroughly treated in Mr. Ilarvie-Brown’s 
‘ Capercaillie in Scotland,’ and a map of the present range of the species is given. 
