CHAP. XIII. | The Winter Birds. 235 
than a specimen of that rare species, the Egyptian goose. 
After about two months’ sojourn in Mr. Boyd’s mill-pond, 
the bird flew away on the day preceding the great snow- 
storm of January, 1854, and never returned. Mr. Boyd 
was afterward enabled to ascertain the correctness of Ed- 
ward’s information. “He was in Liverpool, and while visit- 
ing a poulterer’s yard, he observed a bird exactly like the 
one that had taken shelter in his mill-pond. On inquiring 
its name, he was informed that it was an Egyptian goose. 
The mallard, the widgeon, the teal, the garganey, the pin- 
tail, the ferruginous, the harlequin, the shoveler, the shicl- 
drake, and the eider-duck, visited the loch in vast numbers. 
The ducks were ten times more numerous than the geese. 
There were the scaup (Fuligula marila), the tufted (Ff. 
cristata), the red-headed pochard or dun-bird (F. ferina), 
and the golden-eyed garrot (Clangula garrotta). The red- 
necked grebe and the black-chinned grebe also bred in 
the loch. Herons, bitterns, spoonbills, glossy ibises, snipes, 
woodcocks, green sandpipers, ruffs, dotterels, gray phala- 
ropes, were also to be seen. These were the birds that 
mostly frequented the loch in winter. There were numer- 
ous flocks of gulls of various species, and other shore-birds, 
which only made visits to the loch for shelter during 
storms. 
When spring approached, the birds became restless. The 
flocks began to break up, and flights of birds disappeared 
daily. At length the greater part of the winter birds left, 
except a few stragglers. An entirely different set of birds 
now began to make their appearance. You could now hear 
the shrill whistle of the redshank, the bright carol of the 
lark, the wire-like call of the dunlin, the melancholy note 
of the wagtail, the boom of the snipe, and the pleasant 
peewit of the lapwing. There were also the black-headed 
bunting, the ring-dotterel, the wheat-ear, the meadow pipit, 
the reed warbler, the rose. linnet, the twite, the redshank, 
the black-headed gull, and the arctic tern, which bred in 
