UNCOMMON AND MEMOEABLE 135 



warbler, and the golden-crested wren, with various tits; 

 and while in the morning we see two great buzzards 

 wheeling overhead and curlews flying about below them, 

 we have each evening a woodcock flying across the garden 

 uttering his harsh note, and just now, in the next valley, 

 is heard the croak of four ravens as they fly backwards 

 and forwards from crag to crag. 



A drive yesterday showed us two redstarts with their 

 bright plumage, a wheatear, another buzzard, and a pair 

 of dippers. But the best of our bird-hunting expeditions 

 resulted in our having a good near view of the male and 

 female of the tufted duck. Twice over they came out of 

 the rushes to an open space on a little tarn and played 

 together and dived, finally disappearing in the reeds. We 

 went on to visit a lake on which a bird-loving keeper told 

 us that the great crested grebe, which we had come to look 

 for, had last year brought off four young ones, and had 

 nested again this year, but with what result he did not 

 yet know. He had seen the nest. It was on the water in 

 the reeds, made of reeds with a little water- weed, with 

 which the bird carefully covered her eggs before leaving 

 the nest. The grebes are not easily seen, as they keep so 

 constantly in the reeds; but sailing in the open was the 

 great black-backed gull who has for three or four years 

 nested on a rock in a small mountain tarn. The keeper 

 had noticed a pair of redshanks four years ago who nested 

 near the lake, and they had increased in number each 

 year, and were now fairly common. He said it had been 

 suggested to him to shoot them, but he would not think 

 of it. " Why should I shoot the poor little things?" He 

 had also found this year and protected four merlins' nests 

 and two of the long-eared owl, one of them on the ground, 

 which, though unusual, is spoken of in last month's 

 number of British Birds as not unknown. Of sheld-duck 

 he had found several nests; they were always within a 

 few feet of the head of some mountain rill, sometimes 

 under a heather-bush or a rock, sometimes in an old 



