I So British Birds. 



GREENSHANK— ( Totayius glottis). 



Cinereous Godwit, Green-legged Horseman. — I used 

 to meet with it occasionally in the early autumn on 

 the Essex Saltings, and remember thinking I had got 

 a prize the first time I shot one, and noticed its 

 slightly upturned bill. It is only rare as a species, 

 and not known positively to breed anywhere much 

 south of the Hebrides. The nest is said to be like 

 that of the Golden Plover or Lapwing, consisting 

 only of a few blades of grass or sprigs of ling, placed 

 in a hollow in the soil. The eggs — like so very many 

 of those characterised by the pyriform shape peculiar 

 to the Grallatores — are placed with their pointed ends 

 together in the middle, and are of a pale yellowish- 

 green colour, spotted all over irregularly with dark 

 brown with intermingled blotches of light purplish- 

 grey ; the spots and blotches being more numerous at 

 the larger end. 



BLACK-TAILED GODWIT— (Z/w^5^ cEgocephala ; 

 formerly, L, nielanurd). 



Red-Godwit Snipe, Jadreka Snipe, Red Godwit, 

 Yarwhelp, Yarwhip, Shrieker. — Another of those 

 birds which two or three generations back were ex- 

 ceedingly more abundant than now ; proportionately 

 esteemed, too, as an article of delicate fare in the days 

 of its frequency, now little heard of, or perhaps 

 thought of. But our forefathers thought many 

 things of the eatable sort good, which their descend- 

 ants of 1896 had rather not sit down to. I rather 

 think my young readers might not eat Porpoise or 



