. The birds of Iona & Mull . re than the ordinary amount ofMallard and Widgeon, with the usual proportion of Pochards,Seals, &c, which mostly congregate where the reflux of the tideleaves an expansive margin of muddy acres on which the hungrymillion pick up their pasturage. When the tide is out more than a mile of good mud is laidbare, prolific in every delicacy dear to the Wading or Web-footedgastronome. Thence you may hear all night long their wildcries ringing on the frozen air; tribe calling upon tribe in variedcadence, borne in from the distant ebb so distinctly upon thesilent night wind,
. The birds of Iona & Mull . re than the ordinary amount ofMallard and Widgeon, with the usual proportion of Pochards,Seals, &c, which mostly congregate where the reflux of the tideleaves an expansive margin of muddy acres on which the hungrymillion pick up their pasturage. When the tide is out more than a mile of good mud is laidbare, prolific in every delicacy dear to the Wading or Web-footedgastronome. Thence you may hear all night long their wildcries ringing on the frozen air; tribe calling upon tribe in variedcadence, borne in from the distant ebb so distinctly upon thesilent night wind, that every characteristic note may be heard andthe number of the various species estimated by the observer, evencomfortably in bed, half a mile inland. But when the moon rises high and near her full, clear and LETTER XXI. 147 frosty in the bright blinks between the driving north-east snowsqualls, throwing a sheet of white light over the distant sea andthe dried-up bed of the loch, which it has temporarily relinquished m. $P^ % —out there, breaking across that luminous pathway in a great blackstreak, is a teeming mass of life, dabbling, squattering in the ooze,sailing in black specks across the bright pools, surging to and a noisy contention rises among groups of the vast multitude, 148 THE BIRDS OF IONA AND MULL. as they press on one another, or rival clans intrude too such disputative cacklings subside again as quickly as theyrise, and nothing but the crow of an old cock Widgeon or thehusky quacking of a veteran Mallard is to be heard above thegeneral chorus of many thousand pairs of spoon - bills,1 allsputtering and shovelling away for dear life at the ample feast offat sea worms and rich pasturage of sea grass set before them. While we are watching them, or perhaps by a crafty approachare hoping to have a nearer view, the report of a gun comesbooming over the flats and rumbles away into silence among theopposite hills. Its last echoes are/ however, dro
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirdsscotlandhebride
