142 THE SHETLANDS IN THE 



powers of flight and courage. They live, like all their 

 tribes, almost entirely by robbing larger Gulls, and fly 

 at birds three times their own weight and size as fear- 

 lessly as a Sparrowhawk flies at a Lark. 



As we lay on the side of the hill, looking down on 

 the hollows which are their favourite breeding-places 

 (they make no nest), a Skua, for no other reason ap- 

 parently than that our continued presence too near its 

 eggs had put it out of temper, dashed savagely at a 

 Gull which looked nearly big enough to swallow it, and 

 struck it now from above and now from below with a 

 crack which sounded as if the blow had been given 

 with a riding- whip. The poor bird attacked made one 

 or two attempts to get back to the two eggs in a nest 

 on the grass beneath us, from which just before we had 

 driven it, which was all it wished to do, but in the end 

 had to give it up as a bad job, and flew off with a pro- 

 testing wail. 



There is nothing in Nature more beautiful than the 

 ' heaven-taught art ' with which most birds which breed 

 on the ground in the open lead away from their eggs 

 and young. The Oyster-catcher (perhaps because he 

 feels that it is hopeless for a bird dressed in staring 

 shepherd's plaid, with red legs and beak, to hope to 

 conceal himself) loses his head completely, and betrays 

 his nest by shrieking despairingly over it the moment 

 it is approached. But he is only the exception which 

 proves the rule. We saw in one place, within a yard 

 or two of our feet, what looked like a sand-coloured 

 mouse, crawling slowly and stealthily close to the 



