Extraordinary aspect of the Sun--Sunset from
Rokeby--Mr. Glaisher--"Demoiselle" or Numidian Crane at
Deerness--The Snowy Owl in Sutherlandshire--Does the Fieldfare
breed in Scotland?--The Woodcock.
We have just had a week of the finest weather imaginable, dry, bright
and breezy, and with uninterrupted sunshine. The greater part of our
hay crop has, in consequence, been secured in splendid condition,
without a drop of rain, in fact--a piece of rare good fortune in
Lochaber. We do not know if the extraordinary aspect of the sun at
its rising and setting on Monday, the 13th instant [June 1870], was
noticed elsewhere by any of our readers. On the morning of the day in
question it presented a strangely mottled, yellowish copper-coloured
disc, so singularly unusual as to induce an old seaman, nearly
eighty years of age, in our neighbourhood, to call our attention
to the circumstance. In the evening a little before its setting,
it assumed a lurid blood-red colour, which was very remarkable,
and forcibly reminded us at the moment of Scott's lines in Rokeby--
"No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay;
With disc like battle-target red,
He rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wide wave with bloody light,
Then sinks at once--and all is night."
We were unanimous in predicting an immediate and violent storm of wind
and rain, but the next morning came in bright, breezy, and cloudless,
and such it has continued ever since. Such phenomena, and the nature
of the weather following them, are always worth recording. Virgil,
in his first Georgic instructs the husbandman to confide in those
indications of the weather afforded by the aspect of the sun, for the
rather curious reason, however, that the obscuration of the solar orb
gave faithful warning of the impending fate of Cæsar! A very striking
instance of a form of sophism, well known to the logician, in which an
accidental circumstance is assumed as sufficient to establish efficient
connection. On the morning of Wednesday last we had a smart touch of
frost here in exposed situations--a strange and anomalous phenomenon
in the dog-days truly! But when we remember that Mr. Glaisher (who
for purely scientific purposes has put his life into greater peril
than any other living man), in his recent aerial ascent met with a
regular snow-storm at the elevation of only about one mile above the
earth's surface, we shall not wonder so much, perhaps, that a frost
current should, under certain circumstances, occasionally penetrate
earthwards even in the dog-days. We should have stated above that
on the 13th we carefully examined the solar disc with an excellent
four-feet telescope belonging to Ardgour, when it presented only two
"spots" or maculæ, and neither of these of remarkable size or form,
situated close together on the orb's south-western limb.
We are glad to observe that the "Demoiselle" or Numidian crane
recently shot at Deerness has been preserved, and is to fall into
careful keeping. Its feeding on oats, however, is very extraordinary,
and only to be accounted for by the supposition that its natural
food was so scarce, in a locality so unlike its own sunny clime,
that it was fain to fill its crop with the readiest possible edible
that presented itself. The snowy owl, a specimen of which is stated
to have been recently shot in Sutherland, is by no means a rare
visitor in Britain. A pair, male and female, in full plumage, were
shot on the links of St. Andrews, by Captain Dempster, of the Indian
Army, in the winter of 1847, and are now, we believe, to be seen in
the University museum of that city. They have been known to breed
in Shetland, but never, so far as we are aware, on the mainland,
or anywhere, indeed, farther south than 59° or 60° of latitude. Is
the specimen in Mr. M'Leay's possession male or female? What is the
colour of its plumage--pure white, or slightly barred and mottled
with brown? These are important questions, and every account of such
rare visitors should be as minute in such particulars as possible. The
snowy owl, like the Arctic fox, hare, ermine, &c, is supposed to change
its plumage with the season, the immaculate white of its winter dress
being exchanged for a summer garb of mixed, spotted, and barred brown
and white. It is highly important that such a point as this should be
decided. The scientific name given it--Surna nyctea--is incorrect. It
is probably a misprint for Strix nyctea, so styled by Linnæus, and
after him continued as most appropriate by succeeding naturalists
without exception. In Sweden, where it breeds and is very common,
it is said to feed principally upon hares, hence Buffon calls it La
Chouette Harfang, the latter word being the Swedish for the white or
Alpine hare. It was the French naturalists, also, who first gave the
name Demoiselle to the Numidian crane, its symmetry of form, tasteful
disposition of plumage, and elegance of deportment, in their opinion,
fully justifying the complimentary appellation. Its economy was first
carefully studied, and a correct description of it given, about the
beginning of the present century by the naturalists who accompanied
the French expedition to Egypt under Napoleon, who, whatever his
faults were, was at least neither indifferent to, nor neglectful of,
the interests of the arts and sciences. Does the fieldfare breed in
Scotland? We are afraid the reply must still be in the negative. We
have little doubt that the bird seen by Mr. Fraser of Hamilton was the
missel-thrush, and that the nest and egg in his possession belong to
the same bird, that is, the Turdus vixivorus, and not to its congener
the Turdus pilaris. We are led to this opinion by the fact that the
female missel-thrush is very like the fieldfare in plumage, and not
very noticeably different in size. The nest referred to by Mr. Fraser
was, he says, situated in the fork of a tree, about fourteen feet from
the ground, exactly about the height the throstle generally fixes upon
for its nest, whereas, according to our best authorities, the fieldfare
builds at the top, or very near "the top of the tallest pines." We give
but little weight to the shape and markings of the egg as described,
for it frequently happens that the eggs of different birds, even
of the same species, differ in a very remarkable manner. The hint,
however, that the fieldfare may sometimes breed in Scotland is worth
attending to, and we have marked it down for future inquiry and
investigation. It was for long a question of fierce debate whether
or not the well-known woodcock bred in this country. The matter has,
however, been of late years completely set at rest by the researches of
naturalists, clearly bringing out the fact that it not only breeds in
Scotland, but that such an event, instead of being rare, is, on the
contrary, of comparatively frequent occurrence. This very season,
about the middle of May, one of Ardgour's keepers brought us the
wings of a young woodcock, with the quill feathers still pulpy and
soft, which, of the original bird, was all he could secure from the
clutches of a hawk that was breakfasting on the dainty morsel in
the woods of Coirrechadrachan. We also understand that at least two
woodcock's nests, with eggs in them, were known to some parties in
this neighbourhood at the beginning of the season. It is, therefore,
possible that the fieldfare may yet be proved to breed in Scotland,
but the evidence for the establishment of such a fact must be much
stronger than that brought forward by Mr. Fraser.