Their Eggs and Nests. 167 



of his. Flattened sideways, and liard and strong as so 

 much bone, its efficacy is so great that there can be 

 scarcely a struggle for life on the part of the shell-fish. 

 This bird runs well, and is even said to dive and swim 

 with facility. I never saw this, though I have had 

 them under my observation for hours together in 

 former days. But I knew their shrill, rattling whistle, 

 and their short uneasy flights, and restless paddlings 

 up and down upon the ooze, ^vhen I have been among 

 their haunts, well ; — and many a nest it used to be my 

 lot to discover on some parts of some of the Essex Salt- 

 ings. The eggs, usually three or four in number, are 

 laid on the bare ground, sometimes in slight holes 

 amid the Salting herbage above high-water mark ; or 

 where there is shingle, in some cavity among its 

 higher and coarser layers. They are cream-coloured, 

 of varying shades of w^armth, and blotched and 

 spotted, or spotted and strongly streaked with very 

 dark brown and some few touches of a lighter hue. — 

 Fig, G, piaU VI L 



FAMILY IV.— SCOLOPACID^. 



AVOCET — {Reciirvirostra avocctta). 



Butterflip, Scooper, Yeli)er, Cobbler's Awl, Crooked- 

 bill, Cobbler's-Awl Duck. — Fast verging on extinc- 

 tion. In Sir Thomas Browne's time, it was not at all 

 uncommon ; but of late years seldom recorded as 

 having been " obtained " or met with. If only people 

 weren't so fond of " obtaining" our rare birds. But 

 nowadays, when every third person has a gun, the 



