304 



BIRDS. 



position to judge, have often remarked. There cannot, in our 

 opinion, be the least doubt of their increase during comparatively 

 recent years among the Sutherland hills, since indeed they were 

 actually found breeding there. So also, we believe, an increase 

 has taken place at the great centre, the Cairngorm mountains. 

 The following is the account and actual record of the discovery of 

 the nest and eggs, by Messrs. Hinxman and Eagle-Clarke, among 

 the eastern Cairngorms, which we think well worthy of reproduc- 

 tion from the pages of The Annals of Scottish Natural History, of 

 July 1893, p. 181 :— 



' On the 2nd June, while traversing the bare, stony 

 top overlooking a steep, rocky corrie, in one of the highest 

 parts of this range, we observed a male Snow Bunting in 

 beautiful summer plumage, sitting on a stone a few feet from us, 

 and apparently quite unconscious of our presence. On moving 

 nearer he flew ofi", and the female was seen creeping amongst the 

 stones close by. From the motions of the birds we felt certain 

 that the nest was not far off; but two successive spells of "lying 

 up " failed to reveal its position, nor indeed did we again see the 

 female bird. The next day we rexasited the spot, but saw nothing 

 of either of the birds, and spent some time fruitlessly tapping and 

 turning over the loose stones in the vicinity, with the hope of 

 putting the female off the nest. On returning in the evening the 

 male was seen on the point of a rock a little way down the steep 

 scree-face • of the corrie, and just below the point where he was 

 first observed. He was singing beautifully, and continued his 

 song, while under observation from a distance of a few feet. The 

 female was still invisible, and our chances of finding the nest, 

 owing to the difficulty of dri\ing her out from among such a chaos 

 of loose blocks, seemed almost hopeless. The morning of the 5th, 

 however, saw us back again, accompanied by Captain and Mrs. 

 Savile Eeid, Mr. St. Quentin, and Mr. Ogilvie Grant of the British 

 Museum. No sooner had we reached the edo:e of the corrie than 

 the female was seen a little distance below, flitting among the 

 stones. Taking up our position in line along the face, we had 

 only to wait ten minutes before the bird was observed to slip in 

 under a rock by one of the writers ; the spot was marked, and we 

 knew the nest was oui^s. Twenty feet or so below the brow of the 

 corrie, and at an elevation of 3700 feet above sea-level, the nest 



