in the hope of seeing young redwings British born being frustrated. One of the eggs then taken is on the table as I write, together with the minutely. detailed record in the pages of my brother's note-book for the year alluded to. I well remember the anxious care taken to guard the birds from intrusion, and the deep interest felt in the unprecedented occurrence by the old shepherd and the few others who were in the secret.-Ed.]"-P. 64.

The song of the wheatear, or "wheat-rumped stonechat," as Macgillivray is pleased to call it, is described by that erudite, indefatigable and fanciful inventor of new names, as "a short, lively, and pleasantly modulated warble, which it performs sometimes when perched on a rock, wall or turf, but more frequently while hovering at a small height in the air, and often in the midst of its short flights when pursued or disturbed."—Vol. ii. p. 293. Sweet says that in confinement "the wheatear is continually in song, by night as well as by day, and that its winter song is best and most varied;" and Mr. Yarrell observes, in addition, that "the male sings prettily, but not loud, often when hovering on the wing either near his nest or his partner." This, however, seems little more than a copy of Macgillivray; indeed Yarrell's work is remarkably bald as regards the song of birds, and he seems to have had a practical acquaintance with very few.

Dr. Saxby regards the "steinkle," or wheatear, with great favour, and tells us of one of its accomplishments, that of a mimic, which is new to me this I attribute rather to want of attention, or I should undoubtedly have been able to have borne my testimony also to the excellence of its mimetic powers, for I have often, as I supposed, heard the familiar wail of the peewit mixed with the peep, chack, chack of the wheatear, wherever the latter is most abundant, and have taken the mimic for the mimicked, for whom I have often looked in vain. The wheatear is a bird I dearly love, and the very sight of its effigy in Yarrell reminds me of the breezy downs which are its favourite haunts. In Shetland it is a regular and extremely abundant visitor; it arrives in April, and remains until the beginning of October; the male comes first, and after a few days the female, at first sparingly, but in a few hours the hills and valleys are covered with them as if by magic. But now for its vocal powers:

:

"Having recently made a careful search in the whole of my small collection of ornithological books, I am greatly perplexed to find that although frequent mention occurs of the song itself no allusion whatever is made to the marvellous power possessed by the wheatear of imitating the

notes of other species. For example, one day in May, 1866, upon a hill near Snarravre, a fine male wheatear sitting upon a large stone, after entertaining me for awhile with the cry of the ringed plover, suddenly went off into an exceedingly good attempt at that of the lapwing; but soon afterwards, having inadvertently destroyed the whole effect by a ludicrous mixture of the two, it stopped for a short time, and then began a monotonous 'peewit, peewit,' which continued as long as I remained within hearing. Upon very many occasions I have heard the wheatear successfully imitate the notes of the following birds:-House sparrow, sky lark (part of song), common bunting, mountain linnet, peewit, golden plover, ringed plover, redshank, oystercatcher, and herring gull. So complete is the deception that when the bird has been out of sight I have many times been thoroughly taken in. One April morning, hearing, as I thought, the cry of a redshank, I was preparing to follow up, when to my surprise I discovered that the notes proceeded from a wheatear, the first of the season, perched upon a stone not many yards distant."-P. 68.

My technical reader must bear with me and with another little bird that is as great a favourite of mine as the wheatear, and one that I have been more successful in transferring to my bird-cage, for I have always failed with the wheatear; I mean the snow bunting. At the present writing I have two pairs in apparently the most vigorous health and most perfect plumage, having just completed their autumnal moult; and although I cannot call them "familiar," like siskins, canaries, bullfinches, and some others, they are sufficiently reconciled to confinement to bear it without exhibiting any symptoms of a desire to escape, and sufficiently also to allow of my making any observations I please on their habits and manners. How different they are when caged from what they are in a state of unrestrained freedom we must all be ready to admit; but at the same time how infinitely more attractive than when skinned, and mounted, and arranged in a museum. The chamber ornithologist conceded much to the humble student of Nature when he consented to forego the wiring, the posturing, the painting, and the sealing-waxing, and contented himself with skinning, and drying, and filling loosely with cotton-wool. I scarcely see how he can go further than this at present; but still the place for study is the field, and the weapon, if he require one, the telescope, and not the gun. Snow buntings are not the most patient of prisoners, and yet will reveal all manner of agreeable character if left in peace: if you desire to study them with advantage you must preserve utter stillness, convert yourself into a statue, and then they will go on with

their ordinary avocations. But now let us observe these delicately tinted yet hardy little creatures in the open, when captivity is a state of which they are in happy ignorance.

"In rough or wet weather they are not often seen upon the wing; but, unlike many other birds, they do not usually seek enclosed feeding grounds for the sake of shelter from the wind. During the heaviest gales I have watched them closely, and have then seen that the stubble afforded them quite as much protection as they cared for. At such times they are unwilling to rise, and often permit a very near approach; but when in the spring a severe storm drives them from the open grounds, they gather in very large flocks and assemble in the fields, the walls of which afford them protection and the means of feeding in peace. In March, 1871, I met with the largest assemblage of snow buntings I have ever seen, all under shelter of a four-foot wall, and certainly covering some acres of ground. A very heavy sleety gale was blowing from the north-east, and wishing to obtain even a partial shelter, I too kept to the lee-side, walking through the midst of the broad line of birds. So unwilling were they to rise that I could have reached many of them with my stick, and as I advanced the sight became perfectly confusing, the birds fluttering up as I approached and immediately settling in front, behind and upon either side, never venturing to rise as high as the top of the wall. It seemed as though I were literally wading through them, the continual shimmering of white producing an effect altogether indescribable. In fine weather they are more disposed for flight, and then it is that their well-known notes may be heard far overhead almost uninterruptedly from sunrise until after sunset. I have only upon one occasion heard them late at night, and that was at about eleven o'clock one clear starlight night in autumn. Even in open weather one or two may occasionally be seen upon a stack of oats; but it is only during heavy snow or severe frost that they visit the farmyard in any great numbers. When engaged among the stubble they are not easily perceived, often affording the first indication of their presence by rising suddenly within a few paces of the intruder. When thus disturbed a few nearly always remain upon the ground; but the main body, rising in a compact mass, fly off to some quiet spot if they have frequently been molested. If otherwise, they are nearly sure to return to the same field after the cause of alarm has disappeared. They seldom alight with the first intention. The flock descends with a gradual sweep, suddenly contracts its dimensions as the ground is approached, wheels rapidly when within a few feet of the surface, and rising again, flies off to a considerable distance before venturing to return, and these manœuvres may be repeated a score of times before it will settle upon the chosen spot. When the birds have finally resolved to alight, the flock wheels repeatedly and rapidly, then dropping rather suddenly.

"Snow buntings upon the wing keep up a constant chirping, and occasionally a sudden jarring sound may be heard; and as this is usually followed by an immediate deviation of the flock from its course, it has been thought by some observers to be nothing less than a word of command; but I have been able to account for it almost completely to my satisfaction. On watching with a little patience, any person may observe that simultaneously with the utterance of the peculiar sound, one bird makes a rapid dart towards a near neighbour, and the two in their excitement forgetting to direct their course aright depart from the common track, thus leading the whole flock astray; for birds upon the wing are always ready to imitate any sudden movement upon the part of an object near them, whether it be a stone thrown among them or one of their number falling to the ground. That the note in question is sometimes at least one of anger I have repeatedly observed when two of the birds have been quarrelling over their food; but it must also have some other meaning, for it is uttered in chorus by the whole flock during the performance of those rapid wheels close to the surface, which I have attempted to describe above. Seen against a dark hill-side or a lowering sky, a flock of these birds presents an exceedingly beautiful appearance, and it may then be seen how aptly the term 'snowflake' has been applied to the species. I am acquainted with no more pleasing combination of sight and sound than that afforded when a cloud of these birds, backed by a dark gray sky, descends as it were in a shower to the ground to the music of their own sweet tinkling notes.”—P. 91.

The brambling, like many other species, has become more abundant of late years, in consequence of the numerous, and in many instances successful, attempts to plant these infertile regions with trees. The chaffinch was formerly a rare winter visitant, but is now plentiful wherever there are gardens to attract it; they arrive in considerable flocks in September, October, and the beginning of November, and usually with an easterly wind: the males greatly preponderate in number, and in May, June and July, males only are seen. Both species are regular migrants, and the brambling is particularly distinguished on its arrival by a faded and dingy appearance. Dr. Saxby has caught and caged bramblings, but they seldom lived more than a few days, so incessant and violent were their attempts to escape, and so pertinaciously they refused every kind of food that was offered them. It is different here in London; they are among the most quiet as well as most greedy of cage-birds, eating with voracity hemp-seed, canary, oats, bread, bread-and-milk sop, plaintain, chickweed, groundsel, spiders, ants' eggs, indeed almost every kind of food that I can procure: they

are certainly of no value as song-birds, but that is of little consequence, for the naturalist rarely values his birds by the noise they make. In a wild state as well as in captivity they roost, by preference, at a considerable elevation from the ground, but on one occasion when Dr. Saxby was belated on the hill-side, amid complete darkness and sleety rain, having stopped to trim his lantern under shelter of a wall, his attention was attracted by a twittering to which his ear was unaccustomed. On looking over the wall, he continues:

"I saw to my astonishment that the ground was thickly covered, in some parts literally paved, with bramblings and chaffinches. The sight was a singular one indeed; the poor benighted travellers had chosen the only shelter that was to be had, and seemed to be worn out with fatigue, not one of them attempting flight, or even moving more than its head, which always followed every movement of the lantern. I then left them, envying them their comfortable quarters, and early next morning had the pleasure of seeing a large flock, probably the same."-P. 98.

Of course it would have been impossible to ignore the pros and cons of the great sparrow question; but Dr. Saxby touches it very lightly. Scotland and all its isles are smarting under the plague of wood pigeons, whose complete colonisation has been achieved by the extermination of the hawks. When a Londoner, some years ago, recommended that the hawks should be unmolested, the farmers scoffed at his folly, and triumphantly inquired which of the two was likely to know best, the sportsman, the ground-owner and farmer, accustomed to the heaths and the hills from childhood, or the cockney writing in a garret in the Strand. The universal verdict was against the cockney, and the Scotchman persisted in his suicidal course. This is as it should be; experience is the best schoolmaster, far better than all theoretical homilies. It seems that in Shetland the sparrow appears as a depredator of rather a different kind: there is no wheat, but there are oats and there is barley; and there seems to have been a futile scheme for raising gooseberries. The sparrow takes toll of barley and oats.

"I think this is the only crime we can lay to its charge, except that it frustrates every attempt to rear gooseberries, for though the blossom forms well, no sooner is the fruit the size of a mustard-seed than the sparrows devour it, seldom leaving as many as a dozen berries among as many bushes.