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Transcriber Notes


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                                  THE
                     BIRD WATCHER IN THE SHETLANDS
               WITH SOME NOTES ON SEALS--AND DIGRESSIONS


                         _All rights reserved_

                 [Illustration: _A Seal's Dormitory._]




                                  THE
                             BIRD WATCHER
                           IN THE SHETLANDS
                     WITH SOME NOTES ON SEALS--AND
                              DIGRESSIONS

                                  BY
                             EDMUND SELOUS

                   [Illustration: Shadows we are and
                         Like shadows depart]

                         WITH 10 ILLUSTRATIONS
                                  BY
                                J. SMIT

                       LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.
                     NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
                                 1905




PREFACE


In the spring of 1900 I paid my first visit to the Shetlands, and most
of what I then saw is embodied in my work _Bird Watching_. Two years
afterwards I went there again, arriving somewhat later, and it is the
notes made by me during this second stay which fill the greater number
of these pages. They are my journal, written from day to day, amidst
the birds with whom I lived without another companion, nor did I look
upon them as more than the rough material out of which I might, some
day, make a book. When it came to making one, however, it struck me more
and more forcibly that I was taking elaborate pains to stereotype and
artificialise what was, at any rate, as it stood, an unforced utterance
and natural growth. I found, in fact, that I could make it worse, but not
better, so I resolved not to make it worse. Except for a few pe