BIRD LIFE IN COLONSAY 47 



was late before we sat down to our dinner, but we 

 enjoyed it with appetites sharpened by our sport 

 and adventure. 



As to teal, I think that I established a record 

 by killing three with a throw of a walking-stick on 

 the rocks at the end of Oronsay. Truth compels me 

 to confess that the little family of nine, three parts 

 grown, scrambled across in front of me within a few 

 yards, and that it was hardly possible to miss the lot. 

 It is the first and only time that I have ever par- 

 taken of the " petit poussins " of teal, but they were 

 very good, although there was extremely little on 

 them. I do not profess to make an exhaustive cata- 

 logue, but in addition to the ducks already mentioned 

 I noted pintail, sheldrakes, and of course mergansers 

 in abundance. 



I pass on from the ducks to their nearest re- 

 latives, the beautiful little red-breasted phalarope, 

 whose small feet with web-like membrane attached 

 to each toe indicate a sort of link between the duck 

 tribe and the waders. One remarkable charac- 

 teristic of these beautiful little creatures is their 

 extraordinary tameness. Those I have watched 

 seemed to have lost all dread of human creatures, and 

 my first interview with a member of the family, which 

 took place in another part of Scotland at an earlier 

 date, afforded an example of this tameness. I was 

 fishing my favourite stream, the Add, near Dunadd 

 Bridge, one day in late August, when I espied a small 

 grey-backed bird swimming about close to me in a 

 large shallow pool which the heavy rain of the night 

 before had formed in the ill-drained rushy field on my 

 right. His appearance seemed unfamiliar to me, and 



