114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



louder, and differently modulated. Those who have heard both 

 species should easily recognise either bird by the note alone. 

 When flying overhead, or at some distance from the ground, the 

 note is slow and clear ; but when in the act of alisfhtine, with 

 the wings raised over its head, it repeats the note with great 

 rapidity, the syllables running into one another. This is 

 accompanied by a tremulous motion of the wings, very similar to 

 what may be observed in the Common Sandpipers, or in the 

 Curlews soon after their arrival in spring. The flight is rapid, 

 though the strokes of the pinions are in slow, strong, regular beats, 

 which appear to keep time with each syllable of the note. The 

 mark by which a Greenshank is most easily recognisable, inde- 

 pendent of its note, and mode of flight, and size, when rising from 

 a loch-side or marsh, is the conspicuous white patch of feathers on 

 the rump. It has, moreover, some resemblance, on the wing, to 

 the Bar -tailed Godwit, though smaller, and is midway in size be- 

 tween that species and the Redshank. 



The eggs are difficult to find, and often the bird has to be 

 watched to the nest. I have obtained a good many of their eggs 

 from different localities, and am inclined to think that those having 

 a pale-green ground, with small distinct blotches, represent the 

 type; though others, some of which I possess, have a darker ground- 

 colour, with bold rich-brown and purplish blotches, confluent at 

 the larger end. The Greenshank begins to lay about the 10th 

 May in Sutherland, though in other counties some observers 

 consider it amongst the earliest breeders of the Grallae. I have 

 one laying taken on the 10th May, but of many others received, 

 very few complete sets have been taken so early in the season. 



THE DUNLIN. 



TRINGA A LP IN A, Linnaeus. 



As already mentioned under the Ringed Plover, the Dunlin is 

 found breeding only in one locality in Assynt. Mr Selby con- 

 sidered it a common species, but I thihk it is local in its 

 distribution. It breeds near Tongue, Mr Crawford informs me, 

 but I have failed hitherto in receiving the eggs from any of my 

 correspondents. Sir W. Milner does not mention it in his " List 

 of Birds observed in Sutherland in 1847" ("Zoologist," 1848, 

 p. 216). 



