STONE-CURLEW 



51 



distinguished from the cranes. The young are down-covered, and able 

 to run as soon as they leave the egg-shell. Important characters are 

 afforded by the eggs, which are never more than four in number, are 

 always laid on the ground, and, with two exceptions, are double-spotted, 

 like those of the rails and gulls. Among the plovers and sandpipers 

 the eggs are pear-shaped like those of gulls, while in other species they 

 are oval, as in the rails, in which group the number in all cases is, 

 however, in excess of four. 



It is interesting to note that in a large proportion of the British 

 members of the group possessing a distinct winter and summer plumage 

 (apart from those like the golden plover, which have developed a 



ARD STUDIOS 



STOXE-CURLEW. 



special black dress) the seasonal change of colour is precisely analogous 

 to that occurring among mammals, such as the roebuck and the 

 Virginian deer, namely, from chestnut or rufous brown in summer to 

 grey or olive in winter. 



To take only a few of the most strongly marked instances, the 

 dotterel loses in winter the bright chestnut of its lower-parts in the 

 breeding-plumage ; while the chestnut summer-markings of the turn- 

 stone are also lost in winter. Still better instances are afforded by 

 the two British species of godwit in which the summer-livery of red 

 is replaced in winter by one of greyish brown ; a somewhat similar 

 change also taking place in the red -breasted godwit. Again, the 

 sanderling exchanges its mottled chestnut and black dress of summer 

 for one of grey and white in winter. In the stint the chestnut flanks of 



