508 ANSER FERUS. 
nest, but some egg-shells or fragments on an island so near the shore 
as to. be accessible to boys. John Sutherland [the gamekeeper, 
cf. § 4973] had been there before this year, and found a Goose’s nest. 
Last year he had been there just before Mr. St. John and Dunbar, 
having heard of their approach. I saw seven Geese flying together 
over the loch, which with my glass I can make out to be Grey 
Lags. The keeper knows no other kind, though he has often 
looked for [one with] the black mark on the bill. He gives me 
three eggs. 
At Loch Assynt, on the 22nd of May [1849], on the beautiful islet 
where so many plants and shrubs grow, I found some last year’s 
Goose-eggs. On the islet further up the loch where were the 
Common Gull’s eggs [§ 4558] and the Wild Duck’s, I found some 
fresh Goose-droppings, and another day I saw a pair of Wild Geese 
in one of the little bays at the north side of the loch. They frequent 
Loch Urigil much more than Loch Assynt. 
On the 4th of June I saw at Inchnadamph Mr. McIver, the Duke 
of Sutherland’s factor at Scourie. This gentleman imformed me 
that in the Duke’s permission to the Messrs. Turner to shoot 
Wildfowl in the county “not for sporting purposes,” there were 
excepted Ospreys and Wild Geese. 
5 June [1849] walked from Scourie to Badcoll, the fishing station, 
where we got a boat to go to Big Calva and other islands. In the 
former, Mr. Gunn of Glendbu assured me Geese built last year— 
“ Geese of a very dark kind” (in answer to my question), the 
darkest he ever saw. Mr. Edge found a Goose’s nest, eggs broken, 
of this year, much sat upon, and the nest placed some hundreds of 
yards from the water’s edge, and at a considerable elevation, in a kind 
of little valley or amphitheatre, very shallow, like the site of the nest 
Thomson [ef. anted p. 506] had taken near Loch Shin. By a fishing 
station on another island, or on the mainland, I detected another 
broken egg-shell—a good deal sat upon—perhaps from the same nest, 
as these people are in the habit most days of nesting on Big Calva, 
Gulls breeding there in numbers *. 
* In the island of Calva on this day eggs of Lesser Black-backed and Herring- 
Gulls were plentiful. I selected some from a lot that had been collected there, for 
the islands had been robbed that very morning. Qu. Are these two Gulls 
varieties ? The only difference I could detect on comparison was that one was 
lighter on the back and had pale legs instead of yellow. 
