JANUARY, 1882. 119 



keeping shoreward from the constant succession of storms, 

 there is no novel bird-life about. No doubt they are 

 keeping to their summer haunts in the North, as we learn 

 that even the redwing a constant winter visitor to Ledaig 

 has this year refrained from taking winter lodgings 

 beneath the kindly shadow of the famous rock. 



" A mouse or a rat ? " said he just at our feet, the 

 impudent, fearless creature ! It has run under that stone 

 on the pier-edge, so we step over to examine it carefully, 

 when pop ! out goes the creature, and slips under 

 another, within a foot or two of where we are. There is 

 no fear, no haste, no undue excitement, and yet the 

 sober-hued animal that suggests a mouse or a rat is 

 simply a bird, and no other than our constant attendant 

 the quietest, most reliable, "common object of the 

 seashore." A mudlark you call it in the South, because 

 it always frequents sandy, muddy shores to prey upon 

 the minute insects. A rock-pipit it is properly called, as 

 it not only constantly hops about the rocky seaboard, but 

 it is really difficult to imagine a portion of our rough 

 coast without this active little bird, scarcely observable, 

 it is so like in colour to the ground it affects. In Scotland 

 it is often misnamed the " shore lark," of brilliant plumage, 

 not uncommon on some parts of the East Coast of 

 England, but extremely rare as a rule in this country. 

 The rock pipit (Anthus Aquaticus) is both very common 

 and very familiar, and its gentle little chirp, as it suddenly 

 alights in your immediate neighbourhood, is frequently 

 the only cause of your discovering its proximity. 



An observant correspondent asks us what is the so- 

 called "cheepuc" that occasionally startles the quiet 

 fisherman, as he sits in his boat on the bay, or off the 

 silent shore in the dusk? Can any one suggest any 



