340 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



drainage and cultivation have done so much to banish the more 

 conspicuous wild fowl from their former haunts, it has gradually 

 withdrawn itself from the moorland lochs of the mainland, and is 

 now almost wholly confined during the breeding season to some 

 of the bleakest bird nurseries of the Outer Hebrides. There it 

 leads a comparatively quiet life, being but seldom molested, save 

 at the season when the slender crops are being gathered, and even 

 then the native farmers prefer, the practice of driving it off by 

 lighting fires, to the extreme measure of powder and shot. For the 

 last hundred years, indeed, the flocks of wild geese that collect about 

 that season and a very important one it is to these isolated 

 husbandmen have been kept at bay by fires alone. As soon as 

 the breeding season is over the geese gather into large flocks, and 

 are then very destructive to farm produce of all kinds; indeed, it 

 requires the utmost watchfulness on the part of the crofters to 

 keep them in check. Several fires are made in the fields, and 

 kept burning night and day; by this means the crops are to a great 

 extent saved; but the moment any of the fires are allowed to fail, 

 the geese, which are continually shifting about on wing, suddenly 

 pitch on the unprotected spot, and often do much mischief before 

 they are discovered. 



The Grey-lag breeds in nearly all the islands of the outer group. 

 It is common in North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist, and is 

 found occupying the breeding stations early in May. Mr Harvie 

 Brown took a nest of eggs which were hard sat upon, on 2d May, 

 1870; but Mr Elwes, who visited the Long island in 1868, saw 

 flocks of as many as thirty together later in the season. The nest, 

 which resembles that of a great black-backed gull when found 

 breeding on heath clad islands, with the exception of being 

 lined with down and feathers, is generally placed in a tuft of 

 coarse grass, or among rank heather, and contains from four to 

 six eggs.- When the young are fully fledged, they keep together 

 in family groups for some weeks, and are often seen shifting their 

 quarters from one side of the island to the other. I have noticed 

 small flocks of seven or eight birds in the beginning of August, 

 and a month later I have observed as many as from forty to fifty; 

 but about the middle of October the various families collect into 

 still larger flocks, and continue together until the month of April 

 following, when they break up for the season. During a visit to 

 the Long island in 1867, I was much interested with a flock of 



