PREFACE. xvii 



way in order to remedy the defect iu our series, 

 and after inducing the boatman and his crew to 

 land us, at great risk to the craft and all our 

 lives, were disappointed to discover that a recent 

 north-easterly gale had swept every nest and egg 

 off the rock. The birds were busy building new 

 nests, and our illustration represents the foundations 

 of some of them. 



We sought hard on the shores of several High- 

 land lochs for the nest of a Sandpiper, from four 

 o'clock in the morning till breakfast time, three 

 or four days running, but in vain ; and when we 

 had almost given up the task as hopeless, a curious 

 thing happened. I was lying at full length one 

 evening upon a great fang-like promontory of rock 

 that jutted out into a sea loch, testing the capa- 

 bilities of a small rifle, when I startled a bird off 

 her nest, containing four eggs, in a tussock of rushes 

 close by me. At this time we had exposed all 

 our stock of plates except two, and the reader 

 will be able to judge of our chances of renewing 

 supplies, when I tell him that we were staying at 

 a place so remote and isolated that the kind 

 Highland body who put us up (at considerable 

 inconvenience to herself and her family) was 

 for the space of three or four days quite unable 

 to procure us fish, flesh, or fowl to eat. A strong 

 breeze was blowing at the time from seaward, and 

 after weighting the camera as heavily as we dared 

 with a lump of rock to prevent vibration, and 

 sheltering the waving rashes with our jackets, one 

 of the remaining precious plates was exposed. 



