254 THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. 



they go by the suggestive name of hell-divers. The middle of March 

 is the time to look for them in Loch Gilp, and bad weather will keep 

 them as late as the first week of April. 



The Little Grebe. 



Gaelic, Spog-ri-toin. Paw at the breech or breech paws — a very descriptive 

 name. Norwegian, Sma dopping — small diver. 



This funny little bird exists on most of the fresh-water lochans, 

 even of remote Tiree, and breeds on the moors. It is also frequently 

 found in salt water where the sea runs into land-locked creeks and 

 narrow sounds, such as divide Ulva from Mull, and the upper reaches 

 of Loch Swein, where the tidal waters of the ocean wander among 

 heather-clad rocks and sweep the roots of mountain ash and birch 

 clumps, so interwoven is land and sea in this remarkable loch, which 

 even moved the saturnine Macculloch to rapture. It seems as if the 

 limits of the contesting elements had never been clearly defined since 

 the period of the deluge. 



It was here I saw the grebe trying to conceal himself in the clear, 

 bright water beneath the high rock on which I stood. He floated with 

 his whole body submerged in an upright position, his bill alone exposed 

 above water, in which position I shot straight down upon him, and his 

 lifeless body sprung to the surface buoyant as an air bubble. These 

 birds always try to escape by diving, though I have often seen them 

 take wing, and so quick are they as easily to dive at the snap of the 

 cap, making them very difficult to shoot. 



Thk Common Guillemot. 



Gaelic, Eun du' na sgadain — the black herring bird. 



All the isles that are surrounded by basaltic cliffs, as well as the 

 stupendous iron-bound coast of South and West Mull, are the breeding 

 places of myriads of guillemots, which literally blacken the surface of 

 the sea surrounding them. Actively employed fishing all day, towards 

 evening they stream homewards in an endless string — a river of birds. 

 Their flight is extremely swift, and in an undeviatingly straight line 

 about ten feet above the water, so much so that they often threaten to 

 go dash through any sail that may happen to cross their line of flight ; 



