58 The Shetlands in the 



fly at birds three times their own weight and size as 

 fearlessly as a Sparrowkawk 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 

 apparently 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 protesting 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 be- 

 trays 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 ground, down a little hollow, 

 following the indentations of the ground where the 

 sand, which had drifted between tussocks of grass, 

 exactly matched its colour. It was a little ringed 

 Plover, afraid, if it rose as shyly as at any other time 

 it would have done, of betraying four pointed eggs, 

 evidently hard set, arranged, points inward as a 



