Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/118

94 localities, the short-billed form is found nesting; I had their eggs here several seasons, and can always go to their nesting-ground any season. In Sutherlandshire I have taken a few Dunlins' eggs. The birds appeared to me to be larger than the Hebridean birds, but not so large as others which I have shot on the Firth of Forth, where, however, I have, during the prevalence or after a sharp change of wind, also shot the small form. If we have an east wind blowing at Grangemouth, or between that and Kincardine, which continues any length of time, our coast becomes bared of almost all the big flocks of Dunlins. But at such times small trips of perhaps two, three, four to six may be seen, and these are almost invariably the small short-billed birds. Or if a west wind has prevailed for long (and that is our best wind for shooting the shore-birds on our coast) immense flocks of Dunlins are found—thousands strong; on one occasion I fired two barrels into a huge flock upon Grangemouth breakwater,.... and picked up sixty-seven;.... but of all these not one was a short-billed bird. But if the wind suddenly went round from west to east, these big flocks flew right away across to the Fife shore; and if the wind continued twenty-four hours in the east, then we would begin to pick up the short-billed birds, apparently in family parties. My own belief is that these birds come across from 'Clyde' to 'Forth,' with (or rather against) the change of wind."

Again, in a letter from Dumfries, Mr. Robert Service states: "A good many pairs nest along the merse-lands west of Southerness Point, and these certainly belong to the small-bodied and short-billed race, if race it be. I always think their summer plumage is not so deep or bright as the others that, at that time, are still flying along the sands in great flocks, and that even till the end of May are to be seen or heard flying northward to further breeding quarters."