Robert Service

“ As the evening wears on they rise higher over the tree-tops and along the woodlands, and for the remainder of the night they frequent these loftier heights, only coming down lower when the night is specially bright, or becomes breezy. ”

“ For the most part lacustrine in its nesting habits, the Black-headed Gull is yet by no means unknown as a strictly sea-shore species at the breeding season. One small colony that varies from season to season from sometimes only a dozen pairs to over a hundred pairs has bred annually for many years on one part or another of the grassy salt merses of the Solway to westwards of the Nith estuary. ”

“ About a couple of years ago he removed to another charge at Pitlochry, in the Central Highlands, where a busy life has closed all too soon. Although a Highlandman, his heart was where his life's work had been done, and by his own wishes his body was laid to rest in the cemetery of the old Border City he loved so well by a great company of mourners, and amidst numerous manifestations of public grief.
As a naturalist, Macpherson possessed a rare—almost a unique—combination of qualifications ”

“ Undoubtedly the amount of food—insectivorous and vermiform—they consume the year round, together, of course, with the astounding increase of the Starling within the last thirty-five to forty years, may be set down as the principal factors that have caused the no less astonishing and remarkable change of habits in the Rook, that has so greatly affected the equanimity of game-preservers. ”

“ Many of the swift-flying Noctuæ are safe from the Gulls' attentions so long as their usual headlong flight of the early evening continues, but when speed slackens, and they begin to dawdle—as perhaps all the species do in later hours—then the Gulls snap them up continuously. ”

“ Macpherson was always first to heal any breaches thus made.
His first work of importance was the volume on the 'Birds of Cumberland' (1886) , prepared in collaboration with Mr. Wm. Duckworth. Next followed the 'Visitation of Pallas's Sand Grouse to Scotland in 1888' (1889) . Three volumes of the 'Young Collector Series'—"Fishes," "Mammals," and a "Handbook of British Birds"—were undertaken and issued in 1891. The last named, although certainly of rather limited dimensions, is really a capital little manual, and ought to be more widely known than it is. ”

“ Indefatigable in his outdoor observations, one day he would be found wandering amidst the splendid scenery of Lakeland, interrogating the dalesmen on points in the history and traditions of the wild things around ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1925, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 98 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”