Notes 07 i Birds hi Iceland.



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the summit of the sandy hill on the windward side. While

uttering its remarkable note, this rail stands quite still and puffs

out all its feathers ; from wliat I observed I should say that the

skin of the throat is also expanded. The notes are loud—a

strange mixture of squealing, grunting and booming—and during

its song the bird appears to be gradually collapsing, until at the

end it is once more of normal size. I have heard our English

water-rail utter a somewhat similar noise when near its nest, but

its cries are never so loud as those of the Assumption rail. We

caught two of them alive and brought them safely to England,

and they are at the time I write living in the London Zoological

Gardens.”


% 3? %


“ Unfortunately, rats have been imported by some means

into Assumption and are now very abundant. There is little

•doubt that they devour many eggs of the rail and of other birds

which nest near the ground, and should the rats increase to any

extent, there is a great danger of these interesting birds becom¬

ing extinct in the near future.” Ed. pro. tern.



NOTES ON BIRDS IN ICELAND.


It lias often struck me as strange that, comparatively

speaking, so few lovers of bird-life visit a country so wonderfully

rich in bird-life.


I myself have been to Iceland a good deal, but must plead

guilty to not having gained as much information as I ought to

have done, partly owing to my lack of knowledge of ornithology

and partly owing to the fact that when in Iceland my attention

lias been devoted almost exclusively to trout—and the rule holds

good here as elsewhere that one only sees in a country what one

goes to see.


However, I have noticed one or two interesting birds, and

the tameness of some of them is surprising. On my last visit

three years ago, I got a splendid opportunity of watching the

Great Northern Diver. A friend and I landed for lunch on a

little rocky islet, in the midst of a large lake; and this islet had

evidently been a nesting place for the Great Northern Diver.



