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As would seem probable from its occasional appearance in nearly every county in England, the Waxwing does occasionally make its appearance in Guernsey as a straggler. I have never seen it myself, but Mr. MacCulloch writes me word "I have known the Bohemian Waxwing killed here on several occasions, but have not the date."
MacCulloch does not seem to consider the Spoonbill such a very rare visitant to the Channel Islands, as he writes to me, "The Spoonbill is not near so rare a visitor as you seem to think; specimens were killed here in 1844, and in previous years, and again in 1849, and in October, 1873. They are seldom solitary, but generally appear in small flocks.
It seemed to him as if he had sailed at once out of his perplexities; he remembered that he knew a jeweller, one B. Macculloch, in Edinburgh, who would be glad to put him in the way of the necessary training; a few months, perhaps a few years, of sordid toil, and he would be sufficiently expert to divide and sufficiently cunning to dispose with advantage of the Rajah's Diamond.
"Eriska is interesting as having been the first place where Charles Edward landed in Scotland. It is the boundary of Ottervore toward the north, and is separated from South Uist by a narrow rocky sound. Upon a detached and high rock at its southern end are to be seen the remains of a square tower, the abode of some ancient chieftain." Macculloch, vol. i. p. 87. Hist. Account.
Harvey Brown, however, mentions seeing a small flock swim by with the tide, at the north-end of Herm, in January. Mr. MacCulloch writes me word he has a note of a Razorbill Auk shot in Guernsey on the 14th February, 1847; this, of course, is only a young Razorbill of the previous year, which had not at that time fully developed its bill.
The 'classical' political economy of the universities and the newspapers, the political economy of MacCulloch and Senior and Archbishop Whately, was even more unfortunate in its attempt to deduce a whole industrial polity from a 'few simple principles' of human nature.
In Guernsey itself, however, it is more likely that a few Herons formerly bred, and that there was once a small Heronry in the Vale. As Mr. MacCulloch writes to me, "There is a locality in the parish of St. Samson, at the foot of Delancy Hill, in the vicinity of the marshes near the Ivy Castle, formerly thickly wooded with old elms, which bears the name of La Heronière.
The castle of Aros, in the Island of Mull, "is interesting," says Macculloch, "from the picturesque object which it affords to the artist; the more so, as the country is so devoid of scenes on which his pencil can be exerted.
Tom Moore's is the most exquisite warbling I ever heard. Next to him, David Macculloch for Scots songs. The last, when a boy at Dumfries, was much admired by Burns, who used to get him to try over the words which he composed to new melodies. He is brother of Macculloch of Ardwell. November 22. We had indeed met in public twenty years ago.
MacCulloch seems to think that the time of their arrival is very regular, as he writes to me to say, "The Cuckoo generally arrives here about the 15th of April; sometimes as early as the 13th, as was the case this year ; the first are generally reported from the cliffs at St. Martin's, near Moulin Huet, the first land they would make on their arrival from Brittany."
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