232 THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 



The Snipe. 1 



Abounds in all the moors, where in spring-time the belated traveller 

 is sure to hear their peculiar bleating noise of that season of the year 

 in the air over his head, which cry, if it is a cry, gives it one of its 

 local names of gabhar-adheir (go'ar a'eir), the aerial goat. To a stranger 

 unacquainted with the origin of this strange noise its effect is rather 

 weird-like and creepy in such wild, lonesome spots. In winter the 

 snipe is much more abundant, as frost and snow drive them down to 

 the low lands of the coasts, and in rather hard frosts they assemble 

 in considerable wisps about any unfrozen spring, and at such times 

 I have seen them even on the sea-sands, where they ran about like 

 tringse. 2 



The Jack Snipe is occasionally killed in the islands, and of the 

 Solitary or Double Snipe I have only seen one specimen, killed near 

 Lochgilphead, which was preserved. 



The Godwit. 



Is not by any means a common bird with us. I have occasionally 

 killed one on the seashore while making up a string of little birds 

 for the pot. 



The Redshank. 



Gaelic, Feadag — the little whistler, the diminutive of Feadan, a whistle, 

 the chanter of the bagpipes. 



This troublesome little bird abounds along the coast except during 

 the very height of the breeding season, when he retires inland. They 



ruadh, "red dog, " commonly used in Mull and the islands, is ignored. In the 

 islands bun-hlmachailh is the name for the great northern diver, " the herdsman 

 of the bottom ;" on the mainland it is mur-bhuachai/lr, ' the herdsman of the sea." 

 In the former the solan goose is asau, in the latter ausa, though in St Kilda it is 

 suilear ; from suil, eye, and gheur, sharp, from which appropriate name I presume 

 the scientific name of sulci and the Scotch name solan are taken. 



1 With us the snipe is generally known as budagochd (bood-a-cock), which I 

 fear is a corruption and misapplication of the English woodcock, though it is 

 not a purely local name as it is given in Armstrong. It is also called gabhar- 

 adheir, already mentioned, and meannau-ad'heir, which has the same meaning. 

 It also has the names cubhag and haos(/, which have apparently no signification, 

 though the latter word is connected with fickleness or inconsistency. 

 - A habit also recognised in the Outer Hebrides. — Ed, 



