Birds' -Nesting Season. 69 



Linnet, which is seldom or never seen in Shetland. 

 The two birds are very much alike, the only points of 

 difference of any importance being that the beak, 

 which in the common Linnet is a blue-black, is yellow 

 in the Twite, and that the pink, which is a conspicuous 

 feature in the summer plumage of most of the family, 

 instead of appearing, as it does in the Linnet, on the 

 head and breast, shows itself less strongly in the Twite 

 on the back near the tail. 



Every now and then what we took to be a Raven 

 flew over, high up, or a Plover rose and wheeled round 

 us, the hen bird waiting, as in Shakespeare's day, till 

 " far from her nest," to cry " away," and trying to 

 mislead us by doubling signs of anxiety, probably, 

 as we walked away from her treasures. 



We noticed a few Larks and Pippets, and occasion- 

 ally a pair of Wheatears, who, like other visitors from 

 the south, evidently appreciate the softness of Shet- 

 land wool, and were usually to be seen busily collect- 

 ing it for a nest hidden in some snug corner under a 

 rock not far off. 



The value of Shetland wool in eyes other than those 

 of breeding birds varies with the colour, the shade 

 most highly prized being a cinnamon brown, known 

 as Murad, not unlike the colour of the back of a ruddy 

 Sheldrake for which as much as half-a- crown a pound 

 is often given before it is spun. 



We felt a little as Moses must have felt on Pisgah, 

 when, on reaching the top of the last hill before 

 dropping down to Sumburgh, we saw across the 

 Roost the outlines of Fair Island, looking, in the 

 clear shining after the rain, not half its real distance 

 and tantalisingly near. 



Calm though the water had looked from the top of 

 the hill, it was too rough to allow us, as we had hoped, 



