98 MISS CONSTANCE A. HINXMAN ON 
nesting site is usually amongst bare and open ground near 
one of the forest lochans. The greenshank is a peculiarly 
shy and wary bird, and its nest is extremely difficult to find. 
The bird has the curious habit, for a wader, of perching on 
the top of a solitary tree, from whence it can command all the 
approaches to its nesting-place, and here it will remain, 
yelping in a pertinacious and aggravating way, till the 
patience of the watcher, lying concealed to mark the bird to 
its nest, is fairly exhausted. A good many snipe also breed 
in the marshy meadows, especially about Kingussie and 
Nethy Bridge. 
The woodcock prefers the woodlands, and is found nesting 
in increasing numbers in the forest of Rothiemurchus. 
Standing on the shores of Loch-au-Eilein, after dusk on a 
June evening, one sees them against the sky, flying back- 
wards and forwards overhead, every now and then giving 
their whittering call. It should be noted that those wood- 
cock and snipe which breed in Strathspey do not remain 
during the winter, but migrate to the south, their places 
being taken by more northern-breeding individuals, which 
arrive in October and November, and remain till the follow- 
ing spring. 
The green plover, or peewits, are still numerous on 
the moors, in spite of the wholesale robbing of their eggs ; 
and higher up on the hilltops will be found the golden 
plover. 
The curious trill of the dunlin, one of the smallest of the 
waders, may be heard on ‘the high-lying peat-mosses ; while 
a single pair were found nesting in 1896 on the shores of 
Loch Insh. 
I need hardly mention the curlew, whose wild and 
beautiful cry, so associated with the coming of spring to the 
moorlands, is familiar to everyone. 
A specially interesting species found in this district is 
that rare and beautiful plover, the dotterel, now becoming 
more and more scarce. To find it, one must go to the bare, 
rolling plateau which stretches for miles over the higher 
levels of the Cairngorms. Here, amid the barren peat- 
mosses and scattered stones, a few pairs may be seen. Their 
richly-marked eggs are laid in a slight hollow in the ground, 
