NOTES ON THE MAMMALS AND BIRDS OF ROUSAY. 61 



half-a-dozen with a single shot as they rose. The 

 old and young are much darker in plumage in the 

 summer and autumn than in the ^vinter ; at the latter 

 time I have shot very light-coloured snipe. One day 

 on the moors one of my setters caught and killed a 

 young snipe, and the old bird fluttered about and 

 uttered a curious scream quite different from their 

 ordinary note. I have now and then heard the same 

 note when picking up a wounded snipe. In wdnter 

 the snipe often come down to the shore, I am told, 

 if the weather is frosty. Snipe nod their heads a 

 good deal after the manner of Redshanks, when they 

 are undecided whether to fly or not. One day in 

 summer I was washing some trout so as to put them 

 clean into the creel, when six snipe flew over my 

 head and settled close to me. One stood on a lump 

 of mud about ten yards off, and when I moved it 

 began to nod. On moving my hands and shouting 

 at it, the bird merely walked behind the tuft with- 

 out flying away. 



Jack Snipe (Scolopax gallhiulaj. Fairly common, 

 arriving mostly in October, though 1 saw one about 

 the middle of Sejit ember. 



Dunlin (Tringa alpi)ia). Apparently only a sum- 

 mer visitant, as I never observed many after the 

 breeding season. They breed through the island of 

 Rousay, but of all the places visited we found them 

 most abundant in the marshes of the island of 

 Egilshay, and those at the point of Weir. At this 

 latter jilace we obtained many nests, though, unfor- 

 tunately, they were mostly too much incubated to 

 be of any use, the extreme thinness of the shell 

 preventing the extraction of the half-formed bird 

 without fracture of the e^g\ and I noticed that the 

 shell was much more fragile near hatching than at 

 any other time, probably a provision of nature to 

 allow such a tender, soft-billed bird making its way 

 out. We found the flrst nest of their fresh eggs on 

 7th June, and on the same day saw young ones a day 

 or two old, showing that they are very irregular in 



