raven, the earliest breeder of all British birds, and now rare or extinct in most parts of England. I discovered a nest on the sea cliffs at Laggan Head and took the eggs on February 28th, 1866, being let down by a rope from the top of the cliff, which was my first essay at cliff climbing. If the rope is sound and one is careful to displace all loose stones as one goes down, it is much less dangerous than climbing the grassy slopes of cliffs without a rope, however easy they may seem to be.
At this time, Mr. Robert Gray, of Glasgow, was about to publish a work on the Birds of the West of Scotland, and to it I contributed notes on the Birds of Islay. I gave the Gaelic names by which they are known on the island; I got them from a man named A. Maclachlan, who accompanied me two years later on a more extensive tour in the Hebrides, where as a boatman, interpreter and cliff-climber he was of much assistance.
In Islay on this visit I stalked some wild swans, the only ones I ever had a shot at in Scotland. But golden plover were then as always my favourite bird on the table, and give good sport if you know how to call them on a misty day. St. John’s Wild Sports of the Highlands has left very little to say about this sort of sport and remains to this day the best book on the subject.
In 1866 and 1867 I paid two visits to a place then rented by my cousin, A. Hamond, and Lord Bristol, called Shieldaig of Gairloch, on the west coast of Inverness-shire, Here I shot my first stag in October, 1866, on a great flat moss in Torridon after a very long crawl on my stomach with only one boulder between me and the stag for the last 400 yards; it was a poor beast as regards head.
There were many eagles in the district at that time, and a very nice variety of game, though grouse were never plentiful. I met Mr. Osgood Mackenzie of Gairloch, who has published a very charming book on the West High¬ lands, on which his intimate knowledge of the language, the people, the sport, and the Natural History gives him an unusual authority. On April 20th, 1867 ,1 had a delightful day with him on Loch Maree, which I think the most beautiful loch in the Highlands on account of its size, surround¬ ings, and the ancient forest on its shore and islands. On this day I found a nest of the Greylag goose, and, on the largest of the islands, Eilan Suidh, the deserted eyrie of an osprey from which Mr. Mackenzie had taken five eggs in former years, though it had not been used since 1861. At that time, however, they still bred on Loch Monar, on a loch in Strathspey, where I afterwards saw and photographed the nest (Trees of Great Britain, plate 165), and on Loch Ericht. In 1908 I saw the last survivor of the ospreys in Scotland, at its former breeding place on Loch Arkaig near Achnacarry. I have five eggs taken by the late Ronaleyn Gordon Cumming, which were undoubtedly taken by him at one of these places.
On the same day I found a short-eared owl’s nest with three eggs, and saw the black-throated diver whose eggs I took on an islet in this loch in 1871.
In 1866 I had an interesting visit to the New Forest with Mr. F.D. Godman in search of honey buzzards’ nests. At that time several pairs bred regularly in the Forest and their eggs were usually taken by a man named Peckham, to whom I was recommended by Mr. Cumberbatch,
