Bird Notes and News 



71 



exhilarating effect : his p ping note became 

 louder and fuller, and he began flying 

 from branch to branch, rising higher 

 each time until he was at the very top 

 of the tall old tree, swayed on his perch 

 by a high wind and uttering his note 

 with, I imagined, a ring of happiness 

 in it. 



The point that chiefly concerns us 

 here is, that during the whole time I 

 spent in watching the Bullfinch and 

 his rapid recovery from the debilitating 



effects of his long months of confine- 

 ment, no wild bird came near or appeared 

 to take any notice of him. Yet it was 

 a birdy place, as I have said ; there 

 were Sparrows in scores, Starlings, 

 Thrushes, Chaffinches cruising about in 

 all directions, and Tits and Warblers 

 of two or three kinds moving about in 

 the foliage. And, as in this instance, 

 so it has been in every case when I 

 have set a caged bird free in a spot 

 abounding with wild birds, 



The Birds of Shetland and Orkney. 



It is now some ten or a dozen years 

 since the Royal Society for the Protection 

 of Birds undertook the appointment of 

 regular Watchers, throughout the breed- 

 ing-season, at certain stations in the 

 Shetland Isles, for the preservation of 

 the rare birds. For more than twenty 

 years, however, it has been at work on 

 behalf of two or three species which 

 were threatened with speedy extermina- 

 tion. The detailed account of the birds 

 of Shetland and Orkney, written by 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant for the Watchers 

 Committee of the Society, shows how 

 necessary and, generally speaking, how 

 successful the work has been. 



Perhaps the two most notable of 

 Shetland birds are the White -tailed Eagle 

 and the Great Skua. The latter — a large 

 dark Gull in appearance, with the dash 

 of a Falcon and the reputation of a pirate 

 — has no other breeding-ground in Great 

 Britain and very few elsewhere. As large 

 as a Herring-Gull, it obtains its food 

 mainty by the bold pursuit of Gulls and 

 by forcing them to yield up their fish- 

 prey ; and its specific name, catarrhactes, 

 is said to be an allusion to its violent 

 cataract-like descent upon them. The 



species had been steadily decreasing 

 for half a century ; even seventy years 

 ago it was a target for collectors. Twenty 

 years ago only a very few pairs remained ; 

 and so hopeless seemed their case that 

 Mr. Hudson wrote in 1897 : " Every 

 effort has been made to protect the birds 

 in their two small colonies on Unst and 

 Foula, but it is scarcely to be hoped that 

 this insignificant remnant will continue 

 to exist many years." Their state was 

 doubly bad in that another of their 

 breeding-grounds, on the Faeroes, was also 

 constantly raided, a German collector 

 sweeping off no fewer than 240 eggs in 

 1905. It was about this time that the 

 Society definitely established its Watchers 

 on the Shetlands. To-day the Unst 

 colony numbers over seventy pairs, and 

 fresh colonies are prospering on other 

 islands. They still, however, need watch- 

 ing, the eggs on two outlying stations 

 having been taken in 1914. 



The Great Skua's more abundant 

 cousin, Richardson's Skua, is also in- 

 creasing. An interesting touch in the 

 Report, showing how even the wildest 

 of birds may be tamed, tells of these 

 fierce raiders of the ocean coming into 



