and the largest game, including hares; but the most esteemed and active on wing is the jer-falcon, distinguished above the rest for its ferocity. Of the smaller kinds there is the peregrine, which yearly builds in many of our secluded glens and remote precipices. It is of this species that I have most to say. An old blackcock or pheasant is too strong for them, but they are able to bring down grouse or young black-game. Of the hawk tribe there is the henharrier, the male of which is blue, and the female, called the ring-tail, brown-the hobby,* the sparrow-hawk, and the kestril; the last-mentioned very numerous in some of the islands of Loch Lomond. Nor must I omit the smallest of the tribe, the merlin, not much larger than a thrush, inferior to none in boldness and activity. We have occasionally shot it in Dumbartonshire, and admired the elegance of its diminutive form, which seemed, according to its small proportions, a model of agility and strength.

As none of these hawks, when trained, are much worth for game, one would think their depredations could not be very formidable; but, on the contrary, when at large, and allowed their full sweep of hill and dale, they do much mischief. I once put up a flock of teal which flew out upon the loch; a sparrow-hawk pursued, struck one scarcely a foot from the surface, and, though hardly able to bear its

* The hobby and merlin are entitled to be called falcons. They are long-winged, and have all the attributes of courage and speed. The former is only a summer visitant to the south of England; the latter is resident, and hatches yearly on our moors.

burden, flew with it a considerable way to the shore. I marked the place, and recovered the teal, with half of its head eaten, otherwise uninjured. Last summer, a wildduck reared its young brood in a bay of Loch Lomond. They were reduced to a few by a small hawk. My brother saw it pick one up as neatly as possible, and another day the old duck was seen flapping its wings on the surface of the water, and endeavouring to drive off the hawk. The ducklings had all dived, but the first that popped up its head was instantly seized and carried off. The best powers, however, of these little poachers being only exerted on their own behalf, and the nests of the larger falcons being seldom found, the main stay of the falconer is the peregrine.

There is a gamekeeper in Dumbartonshine, who, when a boy, had received some lessons from the late John Anderson, of hawking memory, and, having also a natural turn that way, has perhaps as good a knowledge of the art as any one now alive. In a steep crag at the head of Glen-Douglas, a pair of peregrines build every year. The young are always taken by this man to be trained, and the old ones never molested. If great trouble and pains be taken, the young falcons may be fit for flying the first season, and I shall now describe a day's hawking with this keeper, which is a very novel spectacle to any one who has not seen it before, and is always, like coursing, most enjoyed by those ignorant of field-sports.

Early one morning, about the beginning of October, the keeper was on the stubble-field with a couple of peregrines

on his fist, and followed by his son, a young lad, with a third bird, and a brace of old steady dogs. The hawks were all hooded, and with bells at their feet; the ground was hunted with great caution, and soon the dogs came to a point. The keeper immediately took off the hood from one of the hawks, and threw it into the air. The bird kept flying round in circles, the bells jingling at its feet. The keeper then advanced rapidly towards the dog, and a covey of partridges rose; the hawk instantly stooped down, and for many hundred yards there was a race, the partridges doing their utmost to outstrip the hawk, and the hawk making every exertion to overtake the partridges. At last he began to gain upon them, and when he drew near, made a sudden dash at one, which he seized in his claws, and flew to the ground. The keeper now walked up and secured the falcon, the partridge not being in any way torn or spoilt. Several points were afterwards got, and three more partridges killed; sometimes the partridges escaped, especially if they rose at a distance, and latterly, when the hawks became tired, they were no longer able to overtake them. When the hawk did not kill the bird, there was more difficulty in recovering it; but the keeper said he never lost one. He had a lure, which was a small board, about a foot long and half a foot broad, with some red cloth nailed upon it, on which he usually fed them; he threw this lure into the air, hallooing at the same time, and the falcons coming to it, were secured and hooded. When flown at snipe, the most beautiful aërial evolutions may often be seen, each endeavouring to out-soar the other,

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until both are nearly lost in the clouds; but a woodcock, the ground is clear, makes the best sport of all.

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The gamekeeper at Rossdhu harried this same peregrine's nest two years ago, and trained them for a different but very useful purpose. He flew them at carrion-crows, magpies, &c., which they drove into trees, and prevented from leaving until he advanced with his gun and shot them.

So much time and trouble, however, are required both in keeping and training hawks, that it is most likely the days of falconry are for ever gone by.

THE BASS ROCK

THIS singular cliff of the sea has been the subject of many pages and many prints; but no description can lessen the amazement felt on beholding it for the first time. I had been familiar with much of our sternest coast scenery, had shot sea-fowl on the Clet of Caithness, and stalked seals under the savage and perpendicular rocks of Morayshire; but there is a grandeur about this solitary giant of the deep which is different from any of the wildest scenes I had gazed upon before.

When nearing the Bass, the ochre-coloured lichen which covers many of the rocks, contrasted with the white guano of the sea-fowl, and the white feathers of the solands, has what painters call a "fine pictorial effect." But when the boatmen pull slowly under the beetling cliff, studded from top to bottom with rank upon rank of living fowl, one is rather paralysed than impressed with the stupendous

scene.

At the time I was there, a raven's nest was fixed near the top of the western side. Three of the young, in