240 THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 



not fitted by nature for a swimming bird, the sea pyet is well able to 

 swim in any emergency, and, when wounded, will endeavour to escape 

 capture both by swimming and diving. But though able to remain a 

 considerable time under water and dive to some depth, he is unable to 

 swim beneath the surface, which makes a wounded duck or diver so 

 difficult of capture. More than once I have seen a whole flock alight 

 upon the water a long way from the land ; it was when the sea was 

 perfectly calm, and I supposed them to be attracted by the large shoals 

 of young herring fry which were swimming near the surface. Fish, as 

 well as molluscs, form part of their diet, and the birds that we have 

 occasionally kept in confinement would eat it greedily. 



The oyster-catcher breeds upon many of the isolated rocky islands 

 and stacks of rock, making a slight nest of sea-pink, like the gulls ; its 

 eggs, also, so resemble those of the gulls that it is difficult to distin- 

 guish them from kittywakes. We always eat the oyster-catchers, and 

 used to shoot them for that purpose, though, like most of such birds, 

 their flesh is more palatable cold than hot. 



THE WATER RAIL. 



I have only met with from time to time in severe weather, when 

 frozen out of his places of concealment ; at such times it is easily cap- 

 tured alive, and becomes quickly reconciled to captivity, feeding on raw 

 meat finely cut up, and taking it freely from hand quite familiarly. 



THE CORNCRAKE. 

 Gaelic, Treun ri treun. 



Loudly announces his arrival in May, on or about the 12th, when 

 all the meadows, fields of growing corn, and especially the rank weeds 

 and vegetation about the lona ruins ring with his unintermitting and 

 monotonous cry. At first it is rather pleasing, as being associated 

 with summer and fine weather, but it soon becomes wearisome, espe- 

 cially when it is continued all through the night, which in these 

 northern latitudes is scarcely dark even at midnight. I have some- 

 times been urged to turn out at that unusual hour with my gun and 

 favourite dog, both of which shared my bed-room, and by the ruddy 

 light from the northern sky, where the sun seemed to be rolling along- 

 only just beneath the horizon, have beat up the long grass in front of 



