Summer in the Western Highlands 



Arctic terns are the most unfortunate of birds; many of 

 their first clutches of eggs are stolen from them, either by 

 gulls or hooded crows, or else by the hand of some small 

 boy. As late as July 25, on visiting a small colony of 

 Arctic terns on the shore of an inland loch, I saw four nests, 

 each containing a single egg, and I doubt much whether 

 the colony had, up to that time, succeeded in hatching off a 

 single young bird. On the same day I somewhat unex- 

 pectedly came across a colony of perhaps twenty pairs of 

 lesser terns, on a stretch of shingle running down to the 

 open Atlantic. As I neared the colony a company of grey 

 crows, feeding on a carcase thrown up by the tide, passed 

 close to the terns in their flight from me, and instantaneously 

 the small terns gathered in a body round their deadly 

 enemies, swooping furiously at them until the crows were 

 away from their neighbourhood. Some of the lesser terns 

 still had eggs, others newly hatched young, and the parents 

 of these latter stooped angrily at me, uttering chattering cries. 



During the last week of July very few meadow pipits still 

 tended their young, but oyster catchers and sandpipers showed 

 great anxiety over their broods, and the young of the mer- 

 ganser were even then in the downy stage. Isolated corn- 

 crakes still called from the now luxuriant fields of hay, and 

 at least one pair of curlew had young small enough to cause 

 them acute anxiety when I strayed on to their nesting- 

 ground. On July 27 I crossed a stretch of boggy moorland 

 where numbers of Arctic skuas nest every year. Some 

 of the birds must still have had young but they were 

 noticeably silent. Indeed, only twice "did I hear an indi- 

 vidual call. 



The gannet, or solan goose, was late this season in mak- 

 ing its appearance on this part of the western seaboard, on 

 account, I think, of the cold weather and consequent tardy 

 appearance of the mackerel and other fish, but is now 

 plentiful. While at sea I passed a solan sound asleep, and 

 so gorged that it quite failed in its efforts to rise from the 



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