ROUGH NOTES IN SKYE AND EIGG. 421 



Mr. Joss and Mr. A. Joss, the contractors, who are keen 

 ornithologists, and have lived a good deal on the island, men- 

 tioned two localities for IE. hiaticula breeding there in June. 



After leaving the Plover I strolled south, counting six Cor- 

 morants and two Black Guillemots. As I turned the corner of 

 the cliff, suddenly up rose a large Black-backed Gull, who had 

 been gorging on a dead lamb ; as the eyes and tongue of the 

 mammal had long departed, it seemed likely that a Raven, which 

 I saw a few minutes later, had also shared the feast. The ground- 

 officer had expressed his disappointment to find, on his return 

 from Skye, that two broods of Ravens had flown in his absence 

 from Eigg, and vowed a campaign of extermination. I was 

 talking to him at his own door when a pair of Yellowhammers 

 flew up. The cock was a little shy of the stranger ; his mate 

 fearlessly descended and gathered crumbs at our feet. Though a 

 wild bird, she often enters the cottage freely, and feeds from her 

 mistress' hand. As we left Eigg, May 26th, I saw this little hen 

 feeding one of her young ones. Both were nesting on the 

 threshold of the cottage, the little one fluttering its wings 

 hungrily. The Yellowhammer is as numerous in Eigg as 

 E. miliaria is in the west of Skye. But all the Eigg land birds 

 are very tame. Corn Crakes three times ran past me in open 

 places, and of their own will ; the Twites were still tamer, two 

 or three pairs feeding on dandelion seed every morning under the 

 drawing-room windows, and settling on the skylights of the 

 attics and on the roof almost as familiarly as the Mealy Redpoles 

 perch on the soetars of the Dovre Field. 



As the ' Dunara Castle ' steamed away from Eigg, in the 

 gloaming of May 26th, six or seven Manx Shearwaters appeared, 

 skimming over the slight swell at the north end of the island. 

 Before 4 p.m. on the 27 th we saw several other Shearwaters 

 skimming over the surf off Waterstein ; I searched subsequently 

 for a breeding-station, but found none, and, though there may 

 well be a breeding-place in Durinish, those we saw might as 

 easily have been nesting in either Rum or Eigg ; for the distance 

 to a bird is nothing. 



On May 30th we saw a Merlin, and the next day a Kestrel. 

 After spending the forenoon on business at Dunvegan we landed, 

 on our way home, upon one of the Skinidin Isles, which yielded 

 some Common Gulls' eggs, and the nest of one of the three pairs 



