Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/409

Rh a pair of young birds of this species last summer on one small island. The Redbreasted Merganser and the Wild Duck also nest on the shores of the Loch. On the moors I have seen the Golden Plover, Peewit, Curlew, Dunlin, and in rocky places the Ring Ouzel, which breeds here, making its nest sometimes on the ground, as does the Blackbird. On all the mountain streams the Dipper is numerous, and on the ridges of Oreag Meaghaidh (pronounced "Maige") U last year saw a Dotterel, Charadrius morinellus, with young ones, one of which I caught, but it was so extremely beautiful that I could not find it in my heart to kill it, although a specimen would have been worth securing. The first time I ascended this grand mountain (about 3700 feet above the sea), on the summit, a Sea Eagle, Haliaëtus albicilla, flew past me, and in following to see where it went I found the most remarkable rock I know of, where the nest then was; but two or three years since some one shot the female bird, and since then there has been no nest. The rock is, at a guess, 1000 feet high, rising from the bottom of the gorge called Corry Arder, 100 feet wide at the part joining the mountain and 30 feet wide at the part farthest from the mountain. It juts out into the gorge perhaps 500 feet. A more secure place for an Eagle's eyrie could scarcely be found. A little to the west of it is a rock face, about the same height, and a quarter of a mile long, nearly perpendicular, which forms the head of the corry, and between these rocks the snow drifts to a great depth, and the stream from the top finds its way down to Loch Arder under the snow, forming an archway down which a man may creep to the bottom. At the base of the rock is Loch Arder, a small lake swarming with trout. My son and I one day caught six dozen with artificial flies in about two hours, pulling them out frequently three at a time. Between this mountain and Ben Tulloch runs a stream called the Altooma, in which the Dipper delights to sport, and before it reaches the coach-road from Fort William to Kingussie it makes three magnificent falls, the lower one being nearly equal in beauty to the celebrated falls of Foyers. These wonders are not mentioned in any guide-book, and few if any tourists ever visit them. The Raven and the Hooded Crow breed on Oreag Meaghaidh, and the Heron may be seen on all the lakes in and near the Glen. Having spent only two or three weeks each summer for several years in this Glen since 1866, I may not have noticed all the birds that frequent it, but the absence of the House Sparrow is very remarkable. I feel sure a species of Owl lives near my sugaring-grouud, for several times when out moth-hunting my hair has been made to stand on end by an unearthly noise which nothing but an Owl could have made.— (Gorsey Hey, Liscard, near Birkenhead).

—I have to report the occurrence here of the Stock Dove, a bird of this year beginning its first moult having been shot here,—on the borders of Armagh and Louth,—on