NOTES FROM SKYE. 361 



on Loch Waterstein. Our other freshwater birds are Mallard and 

 a single pair of Dabchicks ; the former breed numerously. 



On May 19th I found the beginning of a Red-breasted Mer- 

 ganser's nest on one of the Skinidin Isles in Dunvegan Loch ; it 

 was within a short distance of the cairn in which I examined a 

 clutch of seven eggs on May 30th, 1882. As I required some eggs 

 for friends this year, but was unable to revisit the nest myself, 

 I sent the ground officer back on June 17th, when he found nine 

 eggs ; he also found some people professedly searching for whelks 

 where the Mergansers " grow," and therefore took all the sitting. 

 Mergus serrator breeds in other localities in the parish besides 

 our islets, and Mr. K. Macleod, of Greshornish, often shoots them 

 late in the year on the Greshornish river, and considers them 

 excellent eating, if properly dressed. Of other waterfowl I may 

 mention that some Tufted Ducks visited a pool at Waternish, on 

 which some tame Sheldrakes live, late in 1882, and that one 

 example was shot. 



Black Guillemots are very plentiful this year in our breeding- 

 station and their feeding-grounds around it ; they breed also about 

 Dunvegan Head. Puffins and Razorbills are as numerous as 

 usual. Cormorants are apparently more numerous with us this 

 spring than last. Terns are very scarce indeed, and I saw only 

 the five commonest species of Gulls. Adult Solan Geese often 

 visit Lochs Portril and Dunvegan. 



I was glad to hear that the Storm Petrels continue to hold 

 their own in the only breeding- station known to me, where they 

 are preserved and unmolested, unless by interfering Puffins. I was 

 unable to get a glimpse of a single Manx Shearwater on the Skye 

 coast this spring, though on Friday, May 11th, we saw a great 

 number south and north off Coll, on and after 3 p.m. ; some were 

 resting on the water, but more exhibiting their quick semicircular 

 flight ; they struck us as being perhaps on passage. 



Of nobler birds, I was unable to see any eyrie visited by the 

 Sea Eagle. At the very last moment I scrambled to the foot of 

 the nest from which a young one was shot in 1879 ; but though 

 far less plentiful than formerly, and not now breeding on our 

 ground, a young one was successfully reared in our neighbourhood 

 last year, and the old birds are again breeding on that same 

 property, though they have shifted their quarters to another part 

 of it. Several pairs of Peregrines built this year on the sheer 



