856 The Zoologist— August, 1867. 



hour to an hour, but utterly failed to catch a glimpse of the bird. At 

 last the wind fell, and we took the eight eggs, and made for the fourth 

 island, which was only about one hundred yards distant. Here we 

 took some more lesser blackbacked gull's eggs, a willow warbler's nest 

 with six eggs (nest lined with gull's feathers), and shot a great black- 

 backed gull and secured the two young ones : this done we returned 

 to the boat; but the wind had risen, and we could not get off. We 

 had brought no provisions, no rugs, and only a little whisky, as we had 

 expected to return to the shepherd's house in a couple of hours. The 

 gale lasted for twenty-five hours, — i. e. from the time it first com^ 

 menced, — and to add to our discomfort, at one o'clock P. M. it began 

 to rain heavily also. We did not get back to the shepherds's house 

 at Clash till six o'clock next morning, and to return to our head- 

 quarters we had some fourteen miles to walk and row after that. I may 

 as well state here that the widgeon's eggs blew well, but some three 

 days or so afterwards they lost the creamy tint almost entirely, 

 though the crack-like lines became visible in some of them. Now, 

 the two eggs I received on the 3rd of June have still retained the 

 creamy tint to perfection. I cannot consider these eight eggs to 

 be thoroughly identified, but at the same lime I feel convinced 

 that they are widgeon's eggs. The nest, when we found it, was 

 quite uncovered. We had two gillies and our landlord with us on* 

 this excursion. 



Thursday, June 6. — After breakfasting at Clash — the lone shepherd's 

 cot — we started off over the hills towards Loch Maddie, via Loch 

 Martle, trotted up Loch Maddie — in our boat which had been launched 

 from the springs the day before yesterday — and arrived at Elphin : 

 we received two buzzard's eggs from an assistant there ; two merlin's 

 and a redthroated diver's egg, along with a fine redthroated diver, 

 a female. The buzzard's eggs were taken last year, and blown very 

 well indeed with one hole by the person who gave us them ; the others 

 were taken a few days before, and were unblown. One of the merlin's 

 is a most peculiar egg, being very dark sepia, almost approaching 

 black : it is of the usual size, but contained no yelk. The redthroated 

 diver's egg was pale green, with one or two large blotches of shaded 

 reddish brown. Generally the redthroatid diver's eggs are much darker 

 than those of the blackthroated diver. The female bird was shot from 

 the nest, which was placed close to the edge of a small peat-hole or 

 pool of peat-water on the moor. To-day we also received another 

 blackthroated diver's egg, which is a very long-shaped, light-coloured 



