284 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



enough to notice the ridiculous scramble and rush they make to 

 get away, sometimes going head first under the surface, but 

 usually flapping heavily into the water in their efforts to get 

 upon the wing, the fright rendering still more troublesome their 

 usually laborious attempt to accomplish this. In similar circum- 

 stances, I have seen a Heron so utterly unnerved by my sudden 

 appearance, within a 3 r ard or so of where it was standing, — need- 

 less to state this was behind a bank, — that it ran off, flapping its 

 wings uselessly and uttering loud screams, for a considerable 

 distance before it sufficiently recovered presence of mind to use 

 its mighty pinions in the legitimate way. 



It is, however, more particularly in the waders that the 

 divergence between the East and West of Scotland is most 

 manifest. Here the Oystercatcher and Curlew are most con- 

 spicuous ; but even their numbers are few, compared with the 

 congregations of thesis birds to be seen in Nairn and Moray, 

 while the multitudinous swarms of Knots and Godwits that 

 delight the puntsman's eye on those same sandy shores are not 

 to be found in the West at all, at least in winter ; for I believe 

 an occasional spring and autumn migrant does turn up here. 

 Of other waders I saw a few Redshanks, Dunlins, Ringed Plovers, 

 Turnstones, and, on the rocky skerries, occasionally little parties 

 of the Purple Sandpiper, more particularly when the time for 

 their vernal migration came on, it being their habit to collect 

 together before their departure for the north. 



The Heron was well represented, there being a tolerably large 

 heronry in a sheltered bay at the landward end of the loch. 

 Gulls were numerous enough, but only the common species, the 

 Great and Lesser Black-backed, Herring and Common, and the 

 ubiquitous Black-headed Gull being the representatives of the 

 family ; the only approach to a rarity being an immature 

 Glaucous Gull that I saw pitched on a sandy beach at the mouth 

 of West Loch Tarbert. 



In the memorable November hurricane of last year, amongst 

 other birds, a number of Petrels were driven asUore. I picked 

 up about a dozen at Loch Killisport, a little to the south of 

 Swen, where a party of us had a large winter shooting. These 

 were all the common little Storm Petrel, but I saw accounts in 

 the Scotch papers of the Fork-tailed Petrel being picked up at 

 other places on the west coast. 



