182 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



deep. The other Woodcock is flushed about twenty 

 paces from the sitting one. The eggs might well 

 have been the produce of two different hens, so 

 different are they in shape, since of the four 

 two are curiously elongated, two comparatively 

 round. 



Two days later we enjoy a cursory hunt for a 

 Goosander's nest, for though on the early side for 

 a full clutch (April 12th), even in Sutherland this 

 duck probably sitting a month and often laying 

 nine or ten eggs frequently hatches out by May 

 20th. Bird-life seldom seen down south is always 

 a treat, and to-day we have it in plenty the 

 Goosanders themselves, of course, the drake 

 uttering subdued kwuks, as a pair fairly bucket 

 over us ; a couple of Black-throated Divers 

 careering high above their breeding-haunt with 

 joyous, though hideous, shrieks of k ark ~k ark -k ark ; 

 plenty of Wigeon on the loch, too ; in a fine rock 

 towering above a birch-wood hanging to the water 

 a pair of angry Ravens with young in the eyrie, 

 and a new Hooded Crow's nest in one of the trees : 

 then, on the moorland, Golden Plovers not long 

 returned to the hills, Redshanks, a Greenshank 

 just back from his winter-quarters abroad, and a 

 Peewit's nest with three eggs. Common Gulls, 

 too, are seen (they breed here later) ; Grouse, of 

 course, in plenty, and a good many Blackgame, 

 of which one cock is parading in front of eight 

 Greyhens on a rock-strewn plateau. 



