Birds. (H^5 



my object. * It proved a wet and windy night, but daylight brought 

 with it a fine morning; with it also came two gunners along the 

 beach. This vexed me to the very heart. The birds were not yet 

 astir, but I knew they would rise at the approach of the men, who 

 would doubtless attempt to shoot them. Just as I anticipated, up 

 went the birds, crack, crack went the shots, and down fell several 

 birds. Rising from my stony couch, I rushed at once to the spot to 

 see the victims, and found them all to consist of sandeilings, dunlins 

 and one ringed plover. The gunners were strangers to me, but I ven- 

 tured to ask them to abstain from firing until 1 had satisfied myself 

 about the bird 1 sought ; but they seemed unable to understand why 

 one bird could be of so much more interest than another, and told 

 me that, as there were plenty of them, I could fire away, and take my 

 chance. I declined to shoot with them, but eagerly watched each 

 time they fired, and if a bird fell I went and examined it, but did not 

 meet with the one I sought. They at last got tired, and went away. 

 It was now my turn ; but unhappily the birds, from being so often 

 fired at, had become extremely shy, so that to near them sufficiently 

 for my purpose was all but impossible. By perseverance, however, I 

 at length again made out one, as I thought, a good deal smaller than 

 the others. I succeeded in creeping a little nearer. They rose, 

 I fired, and down fell four. I rushed, breathless, hoping to pick up 

 the bird in which I took such interest. But alas ! no : it was not 



* As the writer of this List is doubtless unknown to the majority of the readers of 

 the ' Zooh)gist,' and as some of them might in consequence be inclined to think 

 this an exaggeration, it may be as well to stale th^t at one period of his life such 

 proceedings were quite common with him. Four successive seasons he was never 

 in his bed for about five months of each year, except on Saturday and Sunday ni^^hls 

 and when the weather was very stormy. His day's work done, with his gun upon his 

 shoulder, his insect-box and appendages slung on his back, his plant-case by his side 

 and with a host of pill-boxes, small bottles, &c., to meet emergencies, away he 

 bounded, with heart as light as a feather, either to the woods, fields or sea-shore, 

 searching, as long as any dayliglit remained, for specimens in Natural History. Day- 

 light gone, he would lie down for a nap ; no matter whether by the side of a rock, a 

 sand-bank, a hole amongst the shingle, in a ditch, under the cover of a bush, behind 

 a dyke, or by the side of a tree, it was all one. There he lay till the first peep of 

 morning, when he was at it again, and continued until he thought he had just 

 sufiicient lime left to get to his work by the appointed hour; this, however, only when 

 nothing new or rare attracted his notice, for in that case neither work nor home 

 ever once crossed his mind until the object of his pursuit was either procured 

 or entirely out of reach. During a lour between Banff' and Aberdeen coastwise, 

 which occupied six days, he rested only one night in bed, sleeping the remaining 

 five by the way-side and amongst the bents by the sea-shore. 



