COMMON REDSHANK. 471 



Turkestan and Kasbgaria. In the cool season it visits the 

 coasts, rivers, and islands of India in considerable numbers, 

 and its migrations can be traced to Borneo, Java, the 

 Philippines, and to the coasts of China, but not to Japan. 

 It breeds in Mongolia, and in the southern districts of 

 Siberia, but, roughly speaking, it does not go beyond 60" N, 

 lat. Its reported occurrence in America is owing to a con- 

 fusion with the Xearctic species Totanus flavipes. 



The Redshank frequently breeds in small communities, 

 and a score of nests may be found in a pasture or marsh of 

 a few acres. The nest is well described by Colonel W. V. 

 Legge, who says that it is concealed in the centre of a green 

 tuft of grass, the blades of which are carefully bent over the 

 top, and the openings by which the bird enters and leaves 

 the nest being closed up on her leaving it, only a few tracks 

 in the surrounding herbage betraying its existence. This is 

 also the Editor's experience ; but Mr. E. Gray says that on 

 the banks of Loch Lomond the birds generally select a tuft 

 of rag-weed or other plant, under the shade of which the 

 eggs are deposited without much preparation in the way 

 of nest-making — the few straws on which they are placed 

 looking more like an accidental lining than one designed 

 by their owners ; and in very dry seasons, when the loch 

 is low, the slight nests are placed on the mass of sticks 

 and straws which have been carried by the winds and waves 

 to high-water mark. The eggs, which are usually four in 

 number, are of a stone or olivaceous-yellow ground-colour 

 with purplish-brown spots and blotches ; and measure about 

 1"75 by 1*2 in. They are laid in the first week in April, 

 and fresh ones may be found until the middle of May, 

 incubation lasting about sixteen days. When the nest is 

 approached, the Redshank is very noisy, and practises many 

 artifices to allure the intruder from the neighbourhood ; 

 indeed, at all times it is very clamorous, causing much 

 annoyance to sportsmen by flying round and alarming other 

 birds by its shrill note, which has obtained for it the local 

 name of took in East Anglia and folk in Scandinavia. 



The food of the Redshank consists of aquatic insects, 



