203 WADING BIRDS. 



and lined with a small portion of dry grass, as may be con- 

 venient. During the progress of laying the complement of 

 about 10 eggs, the nest is gradually increased, until it at- 

 tains about the height of a foot ; a precaution or instinct 

 which seems either to contemplate the possibility of an ac- 

 cess of the tide water, or to be a precaution to conceal the 

 eggs or young, as the interest in their charge increases. 

 And indeed to conceal the whole with more success, the long 

 sedge grass is artfully brought together in an arch or canopy, 

 but, however this art and ingenuity may succeed in ordinary 

 cases, it only serves to expose the nest to the search of the 

 fowler, who can thus distinguish their labors at a consid- 

 erable distance. The eggs, more than an inch in breadth, 

 and about 1|^ in length, are of the usual oval figure ; of a 

 yellowish-white or dull cream color, sparingly spotted with 

 brown-red, and a few other interspersed minute touches of 

 a subdued tint, bordering on lilac-purple ; as usual there 

 are very few spots but towards the obtuse end. The eggs are 

 much esteemed for food, being frequently collected by the 

 neighboring inhabitants, and so abundant are the nests in 

 the marshes of New Jersey, that a single person, accustom- 

 ed to the search, has been known to collect a hundred dozen 

 in the course of a day. Like other gregarious and inoffen- 

 sive birds, they have numerous enemies besides man ; and 

 the crow, fox, and minx, come in for their share, not only 

 of the eggs and young, but also devour the old birds besides. 

 From the pounce of the hawk they can more readily de- 

 fend themselves by dodging and threading their invisible 

 paths through the sedge. The nature of the ground they 

 select for their nurseries, and its proximity to the sea, ren- 

 ders their thronging community liable also to accidents of 

 a more extensively fatal kind ; and sometimes after the preva- 

 lence of an eastwardly storm, not uncommon in the early 

 part of June, the marshes become inundated by the access 



