882 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
when disturbed it invariably made for a large bed of reeds. On the first 
occasion of his seeing it, it ran some distance and then took flight across 
- two fields into this bed of reeds, which is in reality a portion of the 
deserted channel of the River Winster. On the day on which it was shot 
it rose very wild from the reeds (some fifty yards off), and was brought 
down by a single pellet through the head. I may add that the locus in 
quo is close to the shore of Morecambe Bay. The bird was most minutely 
examined both by the birdstuffer and Allan, and they both tell me it 
presented no signs whatever of confinement, the feathers being sound and 
glossy and the legs perfectly free from any mark. When I saw the bird it 
was already stuffed and mounted, so that I could form no opinion of my 
own on the point—Epwarp T. Batpwin (Woodcroft, Ulverston). 
BirDS OBSERVED IN GLEN Spran.—The Golden Eagle breeds on Ben 
Aonoch More, the next mountain east of Ben Nevis, and but 400 feet lower. 
From Ben e Bhean (pronounced “ Vahn”), a few feet lower and still more 
east, I have watched the magnificent flight of this king of birds, and have 
seen it wheel round over my head so near that I could distinguish its eye, 
then glide away in a straight line till lost to sight, without apparently 
moving a feather, but seeming to go at will on outstretched pinions in any 
direction it chose. On the latter mountain I have seen several pairs of 
Snow Buntings, Plectrophanes nivalis, in July, and listened to their song 
whilst smoking a pipe, in company with Mr. Howard Birchall, at the foot 
of the cairn on the summit, near which is a vast heap of quartz-stones of 
all sizes and shapes, and bad to walk on, which—but for the impossibility 
of the thing—have the appearance of having been dropped from carts over 
some acres of nearly level table-land. Amongst these stones, no doubt, 
these pretty birds breed, but I did not succeed in finding their nests. At 
the foot of this mountain, near the River Spean, the Woodcock breeds. 
Ptarmigan frequent the stony parts on all these mountains, and Red Grouse 
abound in the moors. Below Roy Bridge Black Grouse are plentiful on the 
south side of the river. In the low, wooded and cultivated parts of the valley 
the Blackbird, Song Thrush, Cuckoo, Chaffinch, Yellow Bunting, House 
Martin, Sky Lark, Titlark (Anthus pratensis), Rock Pipit, and Redstart are 
to be met with. On the banks of the streams that feed the Spean numbers 
of Common Sandpipers breed. On the marshy ground near the river the 
Redshank and Snipe, and on the banks of the river many pairs of Oyster- 
catchers also breed; and last year, on a gravel-bed in the middle of the river, 
twenty-three miles from the sea, I took a nest containing three eggs of the 
Herring Gull, Larus argentatus. I ascertained with certainty that there 
was no mistake about this, by the aid of a telescope, as the pair of birds 
stood on the sand at the side of the river, a few hundred yards from the 
nest. On islands in Loch Laggan, as well as sometimes on the shore of 
the Loch, the Common Gull breeds. I took about a score of eggs and 
