10 BIRDS OF ICELAND 



seem tolerably ridiculous to the jaded modern sportsman 

 who cannot interest himself in anything less than a 

 three or four hundred-head shoot, but I have never been 

 able (and my experience in these directions has been a 

 fairly varied one) to feel the same keenness of interest 

 about the fate of a stag, or anything else in the game 

 way, as I did about that little insignificant-looking 

 bird which I have found elusive in so many ways. 



I collected further information about it from the 

 inhabitants of those parts. They pay little or no 

 attention (though extremely observant in other ways) 

 to the notes of birds, so were unable to tell me any- 

 thing of its proceedings during the summer, when, 

 moreover, they are busy about other things, and 

 anxious to make hay during the comparatively brief 

 time during which the sun shines effectively. The 

 bird is, besides, secluded at that time in the recesses 

 of wild lava-beds and birch scrub — is a most inveterate 

 skulker — and would never come under the attention 

 of any one who did not hear and recognise its note. 



In winter, however, they tell me, they see a good 

 deal more of it, as it drops its timidity under the 

 pressure of hunger, and draws round the farms when 

 the country is covered with snow, to feed on such 

 scraps and insects as it can find about, and actually 

 in, the farm buildings. And there can be no reason- 

 able doubt that the great increase of domestic cats in 

 Iceland of recent years is leading, as in the Faeroes, 

 very rapidly to its extermination. It is undoubtedly 

 very scarce and local in Iceland now, and will to all 



