205 
THE SPORTING OF BIRDS 
gracefully sportive than ducks of all kinds are on the 
water. Not the gentle only, but also the ferocious, 
enjoy themselves in this manner. Eagles and 
ravens I have often seen wheeling and gliding 
through the air in sport, while they gave expression 
to their delight in loud and modulated ciies. 
Natural History of Deeside, p. 184. 
31 .—The Highland Moor. 
Leaning against a cairn constructed of angular 
stones of grey porphyry, supplied by a heap close 
at hand, I survey an extensive tract of mountain 
and moor. The sun, shining clear in a cloudless 
pale blue sky, gives some warmth to my right side, 
while a breeze from the north-east comes wliiiling 
at times round the cairn, chilling me with its 
piercing blasts. It is the 4th of September, near 
sunset. I stand in the midst of a region which 
might be thought one of stillness and desolation, 
were it not that symptoms of human life are seen in 
five little patches of cultivated land, and a group of 
black huts in a hollow, from one to two miles 
distant. Yet the range of vision is not less than 
fifty miles in one direction. Just behind me are the 
summits of a hill range, not more than a mile 
distant, beyond which nothing is to be seen; and 
therefore I have turned my back upon them. To the 
left is a rounded hill, running down into a smooth 
ridge, over a depression in which are seen the hills 
