62 OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



studying and photographing it at home, on a 

 lonely loch buried deep amongst the giant hills 

 of Auld Scotia. 



Upon approaching the wee island on which the 

 bird breeds every year, I beheld the female stand- 

 ing erect, like a feathered sentinel, at the very 

 tip of the withered stump rising above her eyrie. 

 As my boat was rowed close in she precipitated 

 herself into space, and, throwing up her wings, 

 allowed her body and legs to droop as if she had 

 broken her back, the while uttering her peculiarly 

 weak alarm note. Altogether her aerial antics, 

 upon first leaving the much-favoured perch above 

 her eyrie, were such as to suggest the erratic 

 behaviour of a mother Plover on leaving her 

 chicks. When she re-alighted on her coign of 

 vantage, she always held up her wings in the 

 attitude in which the camera has caught her, as 

 shown in the frontispiece to this work. 



The male bird did not put in an appearance 

 for hours, and when he did come home brought 

 a fine large trout in his talons. When we first 

 espied him he was sailing round and round in 

 wide circles far overhead, but as he came nearer 

 his wonderfully clever method of carrying his prey 

 became more and more apparent. His legs were 

 extended almost to their full length, and the fish 

 grasped firmly about the middle, with its head and 

 tail pointing in the same direction as those of its 

 captor, rendering its air-resisting qualities almost 

 nil. At any rate, although a big fish, it did not 

 appear to interfere with the bird's powers of flight 

 in the least, and the fact of its hanging so far 

 below the body of its captor made the whole 

 scene strangely suggestive of a miniature flying 

 machine with a cigar-shaped car attached. 



