VANISHING BIRDS 33 



if we see half a dozen Wild Ducks floating about on the 

 loch opposite our windows, where' formerly there used to 

 be Soto 100 waiting for dusk to start feeding on the stubbles 

 and potato fields. Snipe, Golden Plover, and Green Plover 

 are on the verge of extinction, and the Greenshank, Dunlin, 

 and Whimbrel also. I only saw one Whimbrel last May, 

 and they used to be in flocks resting on our shores at the 

 migration time. The Golden Plover has entirely changed 

 its habits and has become migratory. A very few come 

 in March to breed, but instead of passing the winter in 

 hundreds on our low grounds along the coast, and during 

 frost and snow swarming down on to our shores at ebbtide, 

 they now completely desert this country in September. I 

 have known 350 Snipe shot in a season on a neighbouring 

 shooting only, comparatively speaking, a few years ago, and 

 they bred in considerable numbers on my own ground and 

 gave me a lot of sport. Now there is hardly a Snipe to be 

 seen anywhere, and the Rock Pigeons, which used to provide 

 such good practice for our guns, have pretty well disappeared 

 also. The Great Northern Diver is becoming quite scarce, 

 whereas it used to be so common. The Redthroat is also 

 extinct here, and the Blackthroats have ceased breeding on 

 many a loch where they used to nest every year regularly 

 and without fail ; but there are still a few pairs about. The 

 rapid decrease of the Lesser Black-backed Gull is one of 

 the most striking instances of a bird disappearing. They 

 were wont to breed in their thousands in the islands of 

 Loch Maree, and their eggs were quite a source of food 

 supply in the hungry months of May and June ; now there 

 are hardly any, and they get fewer and fewer every year, 

 in spite of the islands being now watched and preserved. 

 The Storm-Petrel, which used to breed in large numbers in 

 a small island in this parish now no longer does so, and I 

 never see a Common Guillemot on the sea though there are 

 still plenty of Razorbills, Puffins, and Black Guillemots about. 

 No Nightjars have been seen for years here, though they 

 used in former times to fly about the gardens and nest 

 close to this house ; and regarding what was formerly the 

 commonest of all small birds on our moors, viz., the Wheat- 

 74 e 



