NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BANKS OF THE TAY. 
73 
with smaller ones inside, and commonly with a single stone about 
the size and colour of an egg in the centre. These sham, or deserted 
nests, as they are sometimes thought to be, are peculiar to the 
Oystercatcher, and appear to us to be intended more as a blind to 
the real nest, which we find further on, with much difficulty, the 
eggs so exactly resembling in size and colour the surrounding stones. 
Moving a little further down, we notice the Ox-eye, or Ringed Plover, 
in pairs, whose acquaintance we made last autumn. Some still re¬ 
main at the sea coast, but many now come up to their summer 
quarters and breeding stations in the highlands. Its former com¬ 
panion, the Dunlin, though we see him not, is not far away, being 
on the moorland adjoining. We have seen nothing of him on his 
journey, and therefore surmise that he must have travelled by night. 
The month of May has come, and we are gladdened by the 
cheery pipe of the Common Sandpiper, or Summer Snipe, which has 
just arrived. This is a summer migrant only, and is dispersed pretty 
generally up and down the Tay and other streams, where it seeks 
some desirable grassy or gravelly bank not far from the water in 
which to build its simple nest. These, together with many other 
summer migrants, are now before us as we descend. 
On the willows at the waterside we see abundance of the little 
Willow-Wren in busy search for insects among the branches. In the 
thickets on the banks and islands we hear the querulous chatter of 
the White-throat, and with difficulty start him from his hiding place. 
Reaching the more open and scrubby parts, we notice the Whinchat, 
and in a reedy backwater we start the Reed Warbler, a rare and 
rather unknown bird on the Tay. Further on, in the sedgy thickets, 
we hear the loud scolding notes of the Sedge Warbler, who every 
now and then shows himself for an instant, and then, buried again in 
the coarse water herbage, he is lost to view, but the perpetual babbling, 
scolding notes still go on, and are often to be heard through the 
whole summer night. 
The various Hirundines are now skimming over the water in all 
directions in insect-hunt, and, though taking an occasional sweep 
beyond the banks, may well be considered as birds of the Tay, as 
we frequently see them tip the water, dexterously seizing an insect 
from off its surface as they rapidly pass over it. These are the 
Common Swallow, the House-Martin, and Sand-Martin, the latter 
nesting in considerable numbers on the steep gravelly bank close by. 
We notice a small colony of Terns, or, as they are often called, Sea 
Swallows, breeding on the broad shingly parts as we go down, but 
comparatively scarce now to what they were formerly, when it was 
common to see them on all our inland waters in summer. The 
Swift is rampaging about over the water, sometimes high up in the 
