126 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



discovered the nest building. Donald and I were now nine 

 miles from our respective homes and it was seven o'clock ; our 

 baggage consisted of my portmanteau, a fishing-creel, two 

 macintoshes, a fishing-rod, and a gun. We sat down to 

 consider what to do, as it was an impossibility to carry them 

 all home with us. We had just finished hiding my portmanteau 

 in a peat-hole and were starting off home, when hurrah ! a 

 cart appeared in sight going our way along the turnpike. 

 We hailed it and got the whole of our baggage carried to 

 within two miles of our homes. It was nearly ten when I 

 arrived at Carinish tired and hungry, and gladly devoured 

 the products of the land eggs, scones, and tea without milk. 

 Next morning I completely lost myself, being alone ; 

 in the afternoon set off to the keeper's house, six miles off, 

 and arranged to live with him in future. We went out to 

 Loch Horona, but only found a Mallard's nest, ten eggs, 

 apparently hard sat, the nest made of down as before. I 

 visited this nest next day and found only six eggs, with the 

 duck still on ; on looking about I found two of the shells, 

 sucked and empty, clearly the work of the Hooded vermin ! 

 We also saw a Hen-harrier, and searched hard for her nest 

 but failed to find it. On 17th May I went up to this loch 

 again and started to fish, till Donald appeared with the boat, 

 this time having dragged it with a pony two and a half miles 

 over the moor. I caught some beautiful trout ere he came. 

 Having got to work, we soon found two nests of L. viarinus, 

 one with three eggs, the other with one egg; both these nests 

 were on the same detached island. Donald showed me 

 here the nest of a Diver, probably a Blackthroat, from 

 which he had taken two eggs on 8th May ; this was all I saw 

 on Loch Horona. We then dragged the boat about a 

 mile to Loch Nein, in drifting down which, towards the 

 islands, caught about a dozen fine trout ; here we saw a pair 

 of Eider, fully five miles from the nearest salt water. As we 

 reached a long green island the Common Gulls rose in 

 hundreds, and amongst them I noticed a solitary pair of 

 Richardson's Skuas. Having landed, we found eggs of the 

 Common Gull everywhere ; the nests were all placed in tufts 

 of reeds which grew profusely on the island, and nearly all 



