598 BRITISH BIRDS. 
only a patch of cultivated land here and there, which the farmer looked 
upon as oases in the great desert of heath. Now, only a few of the wildest 
and roughest parts of the heath remain here and there between the farms— 
patches of hilly and broken ground, covered over with heath with occa- 
sional clumps of furze bushes, places which we ornithologists look upon as 
oases in a desert of miserable fields and commonplace acres of corn, green 
crops, and such-like rubbish! We spent some time in examining the 
decoy, with all its complicated arrangement of “ pipes,” and walls, and 
cuttings, for luring the Wild Ducks to their fate im winter, and then 
started for Black Heath, where our decoy-man told us he had taken two 
Stone-Curlew’s eggs a fortnight before. He showed us the place, a large 
square bare piece of the heath, where he had some years ago cut away the 
turf for fuel, and which was now only sprinkled here and there with young 
heath springing up from the old roots. There was not the slightest 
apology for a nest ; a mere hollow was scratched in the bare peat without 
any lining whatever. 
We walked on until we came to the brow of the hill, where we saw a 
Stone-Curlew rise from the ground about seventy yards ahead of us. We 
marked the spot; but before we had quite reached it, we found the two 
eggs on a place where the heath was short. As before, it was a mere 
hollow scratched in the bare black peat; not even a bit of grass had 
drifted in to serve as an apology for a lining. The two eggs were very 
different, both in size, shape, and markings, and no one would have sus- 
pected them to form a clutch; they were on the pomt of hatching, both 
eggs were chipped, and we could hear the young chirping inside. But 
for all that, the female flew right away, without any attempt to lure 
us from the spot, and though we stayed near the nest some time, we saw 
no more of her. 
A little further on we noticed a Stone-Curlew on the heath, about a 
hundred yards or more ahead of us. She was sometimes running with 
head depressed, and sometimes standing still with head erect, looking 
eagerly around. As we approached she took wing and flew right away. 
We were unsuccessful in our search for her nest, though we spent some 
time in tramping the heather. The Stone-Curlew is a very conspicuous 
bird on the wing, the light and dark markings on the secondaries being 
specially conspicuous during flight. It is also easily seen on the heath, 
even at a great distance, being so much paler and yellower than the pre- 
vailing colours of the grass, heath, and peat ; as the season advances these 
naturally become burnt up or parched, and then the Stone-Curlew is much 
less conspicuous. 
A little further on a third bird rose from the ground, Bae was shortly 
joined by her mate; both flew right away. We had no difficulty in 
finding the eggs. The bird runs about fifteen to twenty yards and then 
