BIRDS OF LOCH NAVER. 45 



round and round with great rapidity on his nest being 

 approached. I saw no greenshanks about Loch Naver, but 

 plenty of them about the smaller aud more lonely rushy 

 lakes on the hills. The note of the greenshank is musical, 

 and not quite so shrill as that of the redshank. Its flight, 

 too, is different, making longer strokes with the wing; it darts 

 with sudden jerks through the air, somewhat in the manner 

 of a dragon-fly ; sometimes hovering, and then darting down- 

 wards with great quickness. The nest of the greenshank is 

 particularly difficult to find. I never found one myself, and 

 have only once heard of its having been discovered. There 

 is a peculiarity about the egg which, though difficult to 

 describe, immediately strikes the observer, if he is at all 

 learned in birds' eggs. The prevailing colour is olive-green. 

 The shell seems of a fine texture, and the spots are small, 

 liu t numerous. 



A forester brought rue four % eggs, which he said were those 

 of the jack snipe. Though I have every reason for thinking 

 that he would not wilfully have deceived me, I suspect that 

 he was mistaken in the bin], and that the action of the hen 

 snipe when disturbed from her nest, being unlike her usual 

 flight, made him believe her to be the jack snipe instead of 

 the common one. The eggs were certainly small for a snipe, 

 but not smaller than I have sometimes seen them. I have 

 never read any account of the jack snipe breeding in Scotland 

 that I considered \vell authenticated. There is every proba- 

 bility that a few birds, unequal to the long flight of their 

 migration, may remain in this country during the summer. 

 But notwithstanding the eager search made for the nest by 

 egg collectors, it has never yet been found in Scotland. I 

 heard that the jack snipe had been seen breeding near 

 Tongue, but the gamekeeper there says that this is not the 

 case, and that probably the dunlin was mistaken for that 

 bird. 



CHAPTER V. 



Length of Day Sedge Warbler Different Birds near Loch leaver Ben 

 Cleebrick Rain Loch Maddie Frost Ben Laighal Foxes Sheep 

 Killing Catching Wild Ducks Peregrine Falcon ; Manner of Catching 

 their Young Golden Eagles Tongue Fine Scenery of Bay of Tongue 

 and Islands Wild Cat -Seals. 



THE nights at this season are most enjoyable ; in fact, there 



is no darkness. I went out of the inn at midnight, and was 



4 



