CHAP, xvii.] SMALLER SPRING BIRDS. 139 



and swallow whole, voiding the shells broken into small pieces. 

 During open weather they frequent the turnip and grass fields, 

 where they appear to be busily seeking for snails and worms. 



There is no bird more difficult to get within shot of than the 

 curlew. Their sense of smelling is so acute that it is impossible 

 to get near them excepting by going against the wind, and they 

 keep too good a look-out to leeward to admit of this being always 

 done. I have frequently killed them when feeding in fields sur- 

 rounded by stone walls, by showing my hand or some small part 

 of my dress above the wall, when they have come wheeling round 

 to discover what the object was. 



Besides the sea-birds that come into this country to breed, 

 such as sandpipers* pewits, terns, &c., there are some few of our 

 smaller birds that arrive in the spring to pass the summer here. 

 Amongst these I may name the redstart, the spotted flycatcher, 

 the whitethroat, the wheatear, &c. 



The redstart is not very common : it breeds in several places, 

 however, up the Findhorn ; at Logie. for instance, where year J 

 after year it builds in an old ivy-covered wall. The young, 

 when able to fly, appear often in my garden, for a few weeks, 

 actively employed in doing good service, killing numbers of 

 insects ; and every spring a pair or two of flycatchers breed in 

 one of the fruit-trees on the wall, building, as it were, only half 

 a nest, the wall supplying the other half. They cover the nest 

 most carefully with cobwebs, to make it appear like a lump of 

 this kind of substance left on the wall ; indeed, I do not know 

 any nest more difficult to distinguish. It is amusing to see the 

 birds as they dash off from the top of the wall in pursuit of 

 some fly or insect, which they catch in the air and carry to their 

 young. The number of insects which they take to their nest in 

 the course of half an hour is perfectly astonishing. 



Another bird that comes every spring to the same bush to 

 breed is the pretty little whitethroat. On the lawn close to 

 my house a pair conies to the same evergreen, at the foot of 

 which, on the ground, they build their nest, carrying to it an 

 immense quantity of feathers, wool, &c. The bird sits fearlessly, 

 and with full confidence that she will not be disturbed, although 

 the grass is mown close up to her abode ; and she is visited at all 

 hours by the children, who take a lively interest in her proceed- 



