210 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
Grateful to the ear as the melody of the song thrush, 
when heard from the branches of the yet leafless trees, 
or the first whistle of the stone-curlew and the ringed 
plover in their desolate haunts on the warrens and 
“breck”’ lands, is the scream of the redshank in the 
early spring, just returned to its summer haunts amidst 
the broads and marshes. In such localities, in very 
mild seasons, they may be heard as early as the middle 
of February, but are more generally seen in pairs about 
the beginning of March, when their nervous actions 
and swift jerking flight, added to their incessant and 
clamorous cries,* enliven the dreariest waste of marshy 
ground. It is noticeable, also, that the cock redshank, 
in the breeding season, has a “song” of its own, quite 
as much so as the ringed plover or the common snipe. 
More than once, too, in the early spring, I have seen 
tle male bird, as Mr. Lubbock describes it, ‘ pirouet- 
ting” on a gate post, now running quickly along the 
top rail calling loudly to its mate, now bowing and 
fluttering like an amorous pigeon, and less mindful of 
danger than at any other time. With Thompson (“Birds 
of Ireland,” vol. ii., p. 205), I am inclined to think 
that “ what may seem timidity or fear on the part of the 
redshank, should rather be attributed to restlessness of 
disposition,” shown as much when in pairs as when in 
large congregations. The first eggs are usually laid by 
the middle of April, and the nests are so artfully con- 
* Mr. W. H. Power, in some interesting notes on this species 
(“ Zoologist,”’ 1866, p. 125), alludes to their habit of “rismg and 
falling in the air [in their spring flight] with a tremulous motion 
of the wings, at the same time making a trilling noise,” and adds 
that at night, for they never appear to rest, beside their usual 
note uttered when on the wing, they will join in a sort of chorus, 
“one bird beginning and others chiming in, one after another, 
much in the same manner as a flock of ducks assist the old drake 
in his clamorous quacking.” 
