NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 277 



that they came and flourished, and sprang up for a time, and then 

 died out. We have no one who can tell us why. We can 

 only hope that, with protection, they may again come to the fore ; 

 but then that protection must be given more fully than it is now. 



Oyster-Catcher, Haematojms ostralegus, L. 



I find that these birds clean the limpets out completely, except- 

 ing a small portion of the ligament which attaches the creature to 

 its shell. The boatmen told me they could tackle a limpet as big 

 as a crown-piece ; those which I examined, which had been cleaned 

 out by them, were about the size of a shilling. There was only 

 one broken. In general they get out the contents without any 

 need of breaking the shell. It was for some time a mystery to me 

 how their blunt bills were inserted between the shell and the 

 rock, until I read in the " Birds of Scotland," (p. 270), that they 

 only detach those which are already raised a little. 



Purple Sandpiper, Tringa striata^ L. 



This favourite Sandpiper of mine is far commoner at the Fern 

 islands and the opposite shore, than at any other place I ever 

 was at. I have seen, I may say, as many as a hundred in one 

 flock, and they were so tame that they passed and repassed 

 within shot of me several times. I have one which was shot at 

 the islands by Selby, in the year 1831.* 



Turnstone, Strepsilas inferpres, L. 



Another common and ornamental bird of the islands is the 

 Turnstone. On one of my visits I killed three at a shot. It 

 would be easy to kill four times that number, as they fly across 

 the narrow channels which divide some of the islands. It was on 

 the 27th of April, and one of them by that time was in beautiful 

 summer plumage. I have seen them on the coast of Durham as 

 late as the 6th of July. Sandpipers killed in May are, as a rule, 

 finer in plumage than any killed at their breeding places in June 

 and July. 



It is scarcely necessary for me to say that the above makes 

 no pretence to being a complete list of the species which inhabit 



* In the Outer Hebrides Captain Feilden and I shot two Purple Sand- 

 pipers, on 27th May, 1870, and saw others. — J. A. H,-B. 



