142 FIELD NOTES FOR THE YEAR. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



JULY. 



Shore Birds ; arrival of Foxes Herring, and Herring Fishing ; Birds, &c., 

 feeding on them Herring Fishing in Sutherland A Sharper Numbers 

 of Flounders Young Wild Fowl Roe ; habits of Midges Angling 

 Floods in the Findhorn Prophecy of a Woman Escape of a Shepherd. 



ABOUT the second week of July the shore and sands are 

 enlivened by vast flocks, or rather clouds, of dunlins, ring- 

 dottrels, and other birds of the same kind, who now, coming 

 down from their scattered breeding-places, collect in im- 

 mense companies. When the tide ebbs, all these birds are 

 employed in searching for the minute shell-fish and aniinal- 

 cula, on which they feed ; and vast indeed must be the 

 supply required. About the lochs and swamps the young 

 snipes and redshanks begin to fly, and with the wild ducks 

 afford plenty of shooting. 



The young gea-gulls, too, are numerous about the bar and 

 sandbanks, and are easily distinguished from the old ones by 

 their fine mottled brown plumage. 



Great numbers of all these birds must be killed by foxes, 

 &c. ; for every day I observe their fresh tracks along the 

 shore and round the lochs. Near a fox's hole in one of the 

 woods I saw an almost incredible collection of remains and 

 disjecta membra of ducks, turkeys, fowls, game of every kind, 

 and even of roe : apparently a litter of young foxes had been 

 brought up in it. 



On the 12th of July the Nairn herring-boats are all 

 launched to reap their uncertain harvest of herrings. Of 

 late years the supply does not seem to be nearly so regular 

 or so much to be depended on as formerly ; and frequently 

 the men are but badly repaid for all their expense and risk. 

 The cost of a herring-boat here, complete with its riggings, 

 nets, &c., is not much less than ninety pounds ; and the wear 

 and tear of the nets is very great, owing to bad weather and 

 other causes : the hull alone of the boat costs about twenty- 

 seven pounds. There are five men in each boat ; and Nairn 

 alone sends out about sixty boats, so that from that small 

 place not less than three hundred able-bodied men are for 

 six or seven weeks employed in the pursuit of this small but 

 valuable fish. The herrings are generally bought up before- 

 hand by the fishcurers at Helnisdale, on the Sutherland 

 coast, and at other parts, who contract to take the whole 



