218 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



the whole, stock of the district. These birds, we took it, 

 had had their eggs destroyed by a heavy storm of snow 

 which swept all the high grounds during the first days of 

 June, and which piled up wreaths of considerable depth 

 in sheltered localities. 



A more productive expedition was made on another 

 occasion, when I succeeded in photographing the nest and 

 parent bird. In this instance I came across a nest con- 

 taining three young birds : two of them had their eyes 

 open and were covered with a healthy growth of down, 

 but the third had evidently been hatched only an hour 

 or so previously, for its eyes were still closed and it had 

 an almost naked appearance, foreign to the young of the 

 Charadriidce. On this occasion, curiously enough, the 

 parents betrayed little anxiety as regards their offspring, 

 but when I visited the hillside three weeks later, and 

 discovered their half-grown chicks, the old birds showed 

 signs of great excitement and an almost complete dis- 

 regard of my presence. Running backwards and for- 

 wards, they frequently uttered their soft and charming 

 whistle, which sounded to me something like " twee, twee, 

 turr," the first two notes being pitched in a high key, 

 the last being a purring sound difficult to put into writing. 

 The head was periodically thrown rapidly back after 

 the completion of the alarm note with a peculiar jerking 

 movement which I have observed in several species of 

 " wading " birds, noticeably the Redshank. 



The heat on that particular occasion was intense — a 

 thermometer I had with me showed a temperature of 

 over 80 degrees Fahr. in the shade when placed among 

 the blaeberries and grasses of the hillside — and over each 

 rapidly-diminishing snowfield there hung a small cloud 

 of mist, caused, I imagine, by the great extremes of tem- 

 perature. This is the only occasion on which I have seen 

 this phenomenon. 



