210 
BIRDS. 
wise almost in the middle of the county ; and that part 
of the country being very flat and swampy, with a good 
river running through it, I have not the least doubt but she 
had a nest. There is a man in that district who collects 
birds' eggs, and sends them south every year to particular 
houses, from which he gets good prices." — E. T. Sinclair. 
So much then for the authenticity of the capture of the 
bird. But there is tagged on to this an even more interest- 
ing tale. In the collection of eggs formerly belonging to 
Mr. Wolley, and now incorporated with Professor Newton's 
collection at Cambridge, is an undoubted egg of the little 
bustard ; and whether we establish the breeding of the 
species in a solitary instance in Caithness or not, the 
following particulars of its history can scarcely fail to be 
of interest. "We quote again from Mr. Wolley's Egg-Books, 
V. p. 732. Little Bustard. — "This egg I obtained in 
the year 1848 from Mr. Cramond, the dancing-master at 
Thurso. He let me take any of his eggs I chose, as he 
did not value them. He had few eggs — all taken either in 
the neighbourhood or in Orkney, and there were none 
amongst them of which this could be thought a variety. 
I saw how like it was to a little bustard's, but I thought 
no more of it for a long time afterwards, having made up 
my mind without much consideration that it must be a 
variety of the common gull or whimbrel. It was not till 
a year or two afterwards that I began to think it might 
really be a little bustard's, and only the present year — 
1853 — that, in consequence of Mr. Salmon and several other 
good judges of eggs pronouncing it to be a little bustard's, 
that I determined to write to Dr. Sinclair of Wick." 
Mr. Wolley then wrote Dr. Sinclair, and received the 
reply which we have quoted above. Mr. Wolley says in 
his MS. : " In my first letter last month to Dr. Sinclair, 
I carefully avoided all allusion to my egg," but he asked 
him to see the man who shot the bird, and, amongst other 
questions relative to the nature of the ground, and how she 
