550 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



brings them up to the year 1886, since which time they have 

 not been heard of. I will give the last occurrence in my in- 

 formant's (James Laurenson) own words — " Last year, while 

 in the island of Unst, I came across a boy who had found in 

 the previous year (1886) a nest containing six eggs, and 

 being anxious to get young ones, he watched the nest from 

 week to week until six weeks had elapsed, when, as there 

 were no signs of the birds coming out, lie went one night 

 and secured the mother and the eggs. Strange to say, the 

 hen continued to sit on the eggs, even in captivity, until she 

 died. It is needless to add that the eo-o-s were rotten — 

 probably for want of a male bird." Mr Harrison puts the 

 cause of failure to the abundance of vermin, but I cannot 

 quite agree with him in this. By the burning of the 

 heather, not in strips but all over, the grouse are deprived of 

 shelter in bad weather and protection from the so-called 

 vermin, and the dense population, wet and stormy springs, 

 and perhaps, too, the small scale on which the introduction 

 has been tried, are all of them important factors in the failure. 

 This failure, however, is not without its compensations to 

 naturalists, when we consider what the establishment of the 

 grouse and its protectors with gun, trap, and poison would 

 have meant to many interesting Shetland birds. 



27. Quail {Coturnia vulgaris), — One instance of the nest- 

 ing of this bird in Shetland is recorded by Saxby. A woman 

 brought him a nest of ten eggs, which she had found while 

 cutting oats on 25th September 1868. 



28. Golden Plover {Charadrius phcvialis), (Plover). — The 

 golden plover is abundant on all the moors and higher 

 grounds ; preferring the most desolate places to nest in, and 

 usually placing its eggs on a slight eminence, where the 

 sitting bird has a wide look-out. In two cases, however, I 

 put the bird off her eggs. 



29. Einged Plover {^gialites hiaticula), (Sandy loo). — The 

 ring plover in Shetland does not usually nest on the sandy 

 beaches, probably on account of these being already occupied 

 by fish in various stages of drying, but lays its eggs among 

 those patches of bare, white, stony soil so frequent on the 

 tops and sides of the hills. It is more gregarious and local 

 than the preceding species. 



