THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 235 



them in stormy weather occasionally feeding on the newly-ploughed 

 fields. In summer they nearly all leave us, but some few linger till 

 the end of May, when their plumage undergoes a great change, and 

 I have even seen them in pairs in the end of June, when they had 

 fully assumed their complete summer garb — a beautiful tortoise-shell, 

 with very distinct and fantastic black markings on their otherwise 

 dusky red and pure white plumage ; and though I never discovered 

 their nest, I should imagine these were breeding on the smaller islands, 

 Staffa for one. All these interesting little birds are lumped under 

 the general name of triollachan traigh, the little quaverers of the 

 shore, from trioleate, a quavering. 



The Curlew. 



Gaelic, Guilbinn (guley-pin), from guil, a weeping or wailing, and binn, music ; 

 also Crann-tach, one with a long bill, " coulter-neb," from crann (crown), 

 a tree, beam, plough, &c. Its nocturnal, wild cries in moors and lonely 

 places have connected it with evil company, and "ghaists and whaup- 

 nebbed things " are associated in the superstitious rural mind as tending 

 to make night hideous. 



Is exceedingly abundant. Our deeply-indented coasts and many 

 islands present such a disproportionate extent of shore as to offer an 

 illimitable feeding ground for any amount of curlews at every ebbing 

 tide, while the adjacent land is chiefly composed of moors and mosses, 

 full of pools and lakes, and wild broken tracts made up of rock and 

 heather, solitary and undisturbed, of a very nature to suit these birds 

 when the flowing tide forces them to seek their food inland, or gives 

 them an interval for rest and digestion. At these latter periods they 

 gather into very large flocks, numbering hundreds, and are so shy and 

 wary as to make them quite inaccessible to approach, unless by extreme 

 caution, favoured by good luck. Not only is every individual bird 

 vigilant to observe the remotest sign of danger, but there are certain 

 ones specially told off to the duty of acting sentinel, and these are very 

 conspicuous in rough ground, where rocks obstruct a clear view all 

 round and favour the treacherous approach of a foe, as they post them- 

 selves on the summit of a rock or elevated mound, whence they can 

 observe the most distant approach of danger, and at the least symptom 

 of anything suspicious he gives a shrill warning whistle, which instantly 

 puts his comrades on the alert, who, with heads erect, respond with 



