72 TRANSACTIONS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
do SO. A few years ago they could not have remained so long, as 
every bird would have been driven off the water long before from the 
incessant shooting which was going on. It did not matter what the 
mark was, so long as it was a bird—Gull or Water-hen, it was all the 
same. All that is now changed, and it shows what a little quiet and 
rest will do; and perhaps there is no greater result of this than what 
may be seen any day within the precincts of the Fair City itself 
i.e.^ the wonderful confidence attained by Gulls and others in these 
happy hunting-grounds, where a gun is never fired, and long ma> 
this be so. Many of the citizens may recollect how one of these 
very birds, the Golden-eye, whether disabled or not is best known 
to himself, took up his quarters between the bridges for nearly 
three years, becoming quite tame, and we may hope when he 
disappeared it was not by violent means, but that he was wuled away 
by some of his friends to take a trip to the north ; be that as it may, 
he never returned. But enough of this digression. 
As we resume our walk we hear the trilling note of the Curlew, 
or Whaup as he is often called, in pairs or in small parties, steadily 
following the course of the river, but high up in the air. These are 
all on their way to their breeding-grounds on some of the higher 
moors ; it may be those on Loch Tay side. By and by our ears catch 
the shrill piping notes of four or five birds which pass us in rapid 
flight near the water, conspicuous in black and white and orange bill. 
These are Oystercatchers, whose acquaintance we have not yet made, 
also off to their breeding-grounds—not the moors, as is the case with 
the Redshank and Curlew, but to the Stanners (a local name), high 
shingly banks covered with sparse herbage, as explained in the paper on 
the Flora already alluded to. Over these the Oystercatchers are dis¬ 
tributed all the way up by fresh arrivals from the coast, from the head 
of the tide-way at Almond Mouth to Kenmore, where we will follow 
them and work our way down. As we get up the river above Dun- 
keld and into Strathtay we find that our friends the Oystercatchers, 
instead of regaling themselves on their usual fare of clams and 
limpets-not here to be got,-are now quietly following the plough 
on the low haughs like so many rooks, busily picking up worms and 
grubs as they appear above ground. By the middle or end of April 
they are chiefly down on the Stanners, where we will now go, and on 
reaching them we observe several pairs quietly sneaking away and 
taking wing. They return again a little lower down, running along 
the shingle in an opposite direction, so as to mislead the strangei. 
On the high parts we find numerous attempts, as it weie, at 
formations of nests among the stones, tussocks of campion, sorrel, 
and other riverside plants. These seeming nests are cavities m the 
shingle, the larger stones being scraped away and neatly arranged 
