204 OUR RARER BIRDS 



the rough walls and fences in their anxiety and excitement. 

 The male bird at this season may often be seen soaring in the 

 air and descending with wdngs and tail expanded, uttering a 

 shrill note very rapidly ; and he often begins these flights by 

 starting from a stump, wall, or a tree, and returns to the same 

 place, much after the manner of the Meadow Pipits that live 

 upon the moors w4th him. They rarely go far aw^ay now w^hen 

 disturbed, and usually fly on rapid wing for a short distance, 

 or perhaps run along the ground with their wdngs elevated and 

 half open. According to the state of the season, the Eedshank 

 begins to lay by the end of April or the middle of May, and 

 several nests may usually be found wdthin a small area of 

 ground. In a dense tuft of orass or rushes, or beneath the 

 shelter of a heather bush or the bilberry wdres, the Eedshank 

 makes its nest — simply a hollow, lined with a few bits of dry 

 grass, rush, or scraps of heath and bilberry leaves. In this 

 the female lays her four pear-shaped handsome eggs, buff in 

 ground colour, boldly blotched and spotted with rich brown, 

 chiefly on the larger half of the shell. These eggs are very 

 protective in colour ; and tlie wary birds leave them the 

 moment danger threatens. I have known this bird, wdien the 

 eggs were highly incubated, flutter along the ground as if 

 wounded, and try by many artifices to draw all attention 

 upon herself. Only one brood is reared in the season, and 

 the young are tended by both parents, the wdiole family 

 keeping much together for the remainder of the year. 



The next species whose habits and economy we are 

 about to notice is a very local one, and of exceptional 

 interest to ornithologists. Indeed, this unusual interest 

 attaching to the Knot must be my only excuse for including 

 it among our rarer birds, in spite of the fact that it does not 

 breed in this country. The Knot is an arctic bird, penetrating 

 every summer into the most remote districts of the polar 

 regions, going as far north as land extends. Here it rears its 



