BIRDS. 



305 



more upon the flocks of Lapwings than they ever did before. They had 

 first eaten up all their cousin's grub, and then shifted their assiduous 

 attention to a bird's resorts that never did them any harm, nor in 

 any way had ever interfered with them. They are well worth 

 watching, I am conduced from what I have already witnessed. 



Eggs of Peewits were sent to London in those days in exchange 

 for Pheasants' eggs — a fact I was not aware of in any other part of 

 Scotland. Drainage also was a factor in their decrease. 



In the north-east, Don spoke of them as decreasing, in his time even. 



But now in the same districts Mr. Milne says of it : " Very 

 common, and breeding all over in the north-east," and forty dozens 

 of eggs were in the hands of one local agent in one week — he paying 

 a shilling per dozen for them {in lit., 23rd May 1896). 



They were common in Eannoch in 1901 (Godfrey), and generally 

 distributed in the south-west around Glen Ogle and Lochearnhead 

 (Godfrey) ; and all the way up Glen Dochart they are in e\-idence, 

 though not in such numbers as to attract too much attention. They 

 reach almost up to the dividing ridge between Tay and Argyll. 

 Of course they are also not rare around Loch Awe (Argyll). 



I never found them, however, at aU common at or near Dalwhinnie 

 in the north, though increasing in numbers down the valley of the 

 Garry, as also down the valley of the Truim of Spey (Moray). 



There was an old Scottish Parliamentary Act ordering that "the 

 eggs of the Lapwing were to be destroyed," in order "that these 

 birds might not go south, and become a delicious repast to our un- 

 natural enemies the English." So it appears that the poor Lapwing 

 has had to go through many ups and downs in its history ; and even 

 at these eleventh hours their eggs still minister to the "depraved 

 appetites" of the "belly of the world" — as I have more than once 

 heard London denominated, even in Ultima Thule, by an Orcadian. 

 If I remember aright, he was referring to the ultimate resting--p\a.ce of 

 a box of seventy-two lobsters ! 



Strepsilas interpres (L.). Turnstone. 



Winter \'isitant to the coast. But not so abundant as in many 

 other parts of Scotland. Sandy shores are not so much to their 

 taste as rocky places, which they usually seem to prefer in company 

 with the Purple Sandpiper. Thus the rocky undercliff and foreshore, 

 or rocky islands in the west, are by far preferred. They may even be 



U 



