i8o LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



remaining strongholds are on various islands on the 

 west and north of Scotland, which it seems a pity 

 more particularly to specialise. To watch these 

 tame and gentle little creatures at their breeding 

 stations on the wild islands of the north, is a sight 

 whose charm no pen can do justice to ; and it 

 grieves us to think that continued persecution 

 is rapidly bringing the day when such exquisite 

 pictures of bird life will fade from our Scottish 

 waters for ever. Even within the past ten 

 years the number of breeding birds has sadly 

 diminished, and there can be no doubt what- 

 ever that the indigenous stock is fast becoming 

 exhausted. 



Beyond the limits of the British Islands the 

 Red-necked Phalarope has a very extensive range, 

 breeding throughout the Arctic and sub-Arctic 

 regions of both hemispheres. In America we find 

 it from Alaska to Greenland : in the Old World 

 from Iceland and the Faroes across Europe and 

 Asia to Kamtschatka. In Continental Europe this 

 Phalarope breeds as far south as the Dovrefjeid 

 in latitude 62°, and in Eastern Asia as low as 

 latitude 55° on the shores of the Okhotsk Sea. Its 

 winter migrations extend in the Old World down 

 to the basin of the Mediterranean, Persia, Northern 



