316 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



to my brother, and we arranged with a very 



intelligent fellow who knew the ground almost as 



well as the palm of his hand, to be ready to 



go out with us at two o'clock the following 



morning. 



We did not go to bed that night, although 

 we retired to our room, and just after 1 a.m. 

 we stole forth from the hotel, boots in hand, so 

 as not to disturb the slumbers of our fellow 

 sojourners by any undue clatter in the stone 

 flagged hall. Our guide joined us at the very 

 tick of the appointed hour, and together we 

 trudged for three or four miles in the still strong 

 morning air across a piece of country thickly 

 clothed with heather, long coarse grass and rushes, 

 and profusely dotted with innumerable small lochs 

 and bogs. 



By-and-by we came upon a Red-Throated 

 Diver sitting upon her nest, which was situated 

 on a wee island of peat standing right in the 

 centre of a little tarn. I detected the bird 

 through my binoculars and watched her slip 

 quietly away upon our approach. The tarn was 

 far too deep to wade, but my brother would have 

 swum across to the island had we had a rope 

 on which we could have sent his camera across 

 to him as we have since done under similar 

 circumstances. 



Whilst examining the shores of another small 

 island in a large loch with my field-glasses, I 

 had the good fortune to see a Shelduck leave her 

 nesting burrow a habit practised by these birds 

 in the very early hours of the morning. 



We found the water lying between the shore 

 of the loch and the island comparatively shallow, 

 so waded over to examine the Shelduck's nesting 



