136 GRALL^E. 



generally migratory breeders within the country, we might 

 expect to find them, as is the case with those other species 

 which are known to breed northwards, most abundant in the 

 north at the time when they disappear in the south. Such, 

 however, is not the fact ; for those that appear in the Shet- 

 land isles in summer, are then in small flocks, and much 

 fewer in number than in the winter. The probability is, that 

 those seen in Shetland retire to the rocky coast of Norway, 

 whore the birds breed in great number, depositing their eggs 

 under the juniper bushes, and on the shelves of the rock, 

 without even the rudiments of a nest. The eggs are four in 

 < number, placed in the quatrefoil form, and, but for that, not 

 easily distinguishable from the pebbles among which they are 

 deposited. Their ground is a sort of a pale greenish stone 

 colour, spotted with rich brown. 



They also breed far north in the Arctic regions ; but that 

 they must quit the extreme north in winter, before the sea 

 and land are equally covered with snow, and food for them 

 ceases to be accessible, we may almost take for granted. It 

 does not, however, thence follow that the same birds leave 

 our shores at an advanced period of the spring, retire to the 

 extreme north, rear their broods, and return again with 

 those broods plumed by the month of August. That would 

 be at variance not only with the general practice, and there- 

 fore with the law (for the laws of nature are nothing but 

 general practices) of migration from the polar regions at 

 least in birds that do not swim. Some birds are late before 

 they set out for the north ; but those that are so, may be 

 in general considered as European migrants, that have not 

 far to fly ; and they linger chiefly on the east side of the 

 island ; and not in Cornwall, or on the British Channel coast 

 of South Wales, where turn-stones are seen till the season is 

 pretty far advanced. 



That, in consequence of the long rest during winter, and 



