232 HILL BIRDS OF SCOTLAND 



a iiind cross the plateau behind nie and make straight for 

 the spot where the calf was left. 



But during these hours a small life had been lost, and 

 a small spirit of life had gone out into the great spaces, 

 beyond where our knowledge may carry us. He had not 

 been dead long, this little calf His body was still warm, 

 and his tongue hung ])atlietically from the comer of his 

 mouth. But of his mother there was no sign ; she was pro- 

 bably a young hind, and young hinds are without experience 

 as mothers, and at times desert their offspring after birth. 



As I crossed the hill the sky lighted westward with 

 the passing of the storm, and Ben Nevis stood outlined, 

 with its snowy corries and its great precipices — a barrier 

 stationed against the strong storms of the Atlantic. 



It was on June 23rd that the young Dotterel chicks 

 commenced to cry out feebly inside their prisons, and to 

 tap vigorously on the shells as they forced their way out 

 into the world. On this morning the air was of extra- 

 ordinary clearness. Eastwards the Cairngorm range of 

 hills stood sharply out. The big snowfield on Horseman's 

 Corrie of Braeriach was clear, and the flat top of Cairn 

 Toul, with the snow wreaths at the head of the Tailor's 

 Corrie of Ben Mac Dhui lying behind it, caught the rays 

 of the sun. South, the view extended as far as the hills of 

 distant Kinross, and north-west every snow-bed on the 

 Knoidart Hills was distinct. 



The air was cold, and soon a squall of wind and rain 

 swept across Scotland from north to south. The tem- 

 perature fell rapidly, so that, even with the sun shining full 

 on the plateau where I lay, the air was sharp and without 

 warmth. In the midst of the squall an Eagle soared 

 grimly past, making for his eyrie away to the north, but 

 the Dotterel apparently did not see him — at all events, he 

 continued to run restlessly round his nest. With the 

 passing of the squall the sun again shone out, and a solar 



