Birds alluring Intruders from their Nests. 505 



can only be satisfactorily answered, I consider, by different 

 correspondents reporting their personal observations. With 

 this view, I offer a few additional facts in connexion with 

 those cited by Mr. Conway. Walking last spring amongst 

 some rushes growing near a river, my attention was arrested 

 by observing a black-headed bunting (Embenza Schceniculus) 

 performing manoeuvres similar to those stated (VII. 483.) of 

 the skylark, by shuffling through the rushes and trailing 

 along the ground, as if one of her legs or wings was broken. 



1 followed her to see the result ; and she, having led me to 

 some considerable distance, took wing, no doubt much re- 

 joiced, on return, to find her stratagems had been successful in 

 preserving her young brood ; although not in preventing the 

 discovery of her nest, containing five young ones, which I 

 found was placed, as usual, on the side of a hassock *, about 



2 ft from the ground, and almost screened from view by over- 

 hanging dead grass. I have invariably found it in such a 

 situation, and never suspended between reeds, as is sometimes 

 stated ; it was composed of dead grass, and lined sparingly 

 with hair. This is the first and only instance of this bird 

 resorting to such wiles, that has come under my observation. 

 With the ring plover (Charadrius Hiaticula) it is of more 

 common occurrence. I have repeatedly witnessed this bird 

 making use of the same stratagems as those I have men- 

 tioned, in V. 416., of the dunlin, and, in V. 420., of the arctic 

 gull (Lestris RichardscWz, not " Lestris 'parasiticus Boie," 

 as wrongly named in V. 420.). One instance has come under 

 my view of the golden plover (Charadrius pluvialis) resorting 

 to the same means on being disturbed from her eggs, which 

 were near the time of being hatched. On disturbing some 

 eider ducks from their nests at the Orkney Islands (V. 422.), 

 they went flapping along on the ground, as if they were in- 

 jured, for some considerable distance before they took wing. 

 Last spring (1834), I had come suddenly upon a wild duck 

 {An&s J56schas) with a brood of young ones: she immediately 

 exhibited great anxiety and distress by a variety of move- 



* A species of grass [? of Carex] that grows in detached clumps in the 

 wet parts of our fenny districts, and often attains the height of 3 ft., the 

 diameter of the clump being 2 ft. or more, forming a compact mass by the 

 growth of years. Cut and dried, it may be often met with in many of our 

 village churches, and used by the poor as hassocks to kneel upon. — J.D.S. 

 [This nature-formed hassock was, as lately as two generations ago, and it 

 may be that it is still, sometimes used as a supplementary seat in the chim- 

 ney corners of some fen farm-houses. I have not seen one, but have been 

 told this by individuals of the generation preceding my own who had. 

 Will Mr. Salmon deem it too much trouble to supply a specimen of the 

 plant's herbage, flower, and seed, either fresh or dried and pressed, to 

 us?] 



Vol. VIII.— No. 53. nn 



