Nesting Habits 153 
times a well-compacted mass of dried grasses and herbage and in 
others little more than a chance collection of débris. Where a nest 
is well concealed, the female will sit very close and not betray its 
situation until almost trodden upon, whereas in more exposed 
situations she usually slips off and, crouching, runs some distance 
before taking wing. 
The nest here shown was amid a dense growth of coarse 
herbage, in which ox-eye daisies and dandelions predominated. 
The bird only left when I was within 2 ft. of her and in her scuffle 
and alarm drove a claw through one of the eggs. To get a photo- 
graph of this nest, we had to cut a lane towards it and clear away 
much of the surrounding herbage. This nest was only a slight 
depression measuring 8 in. across and was lined with grasses and 
herbs pressed down around it. The two eggs it contained were 
of a dull-coloured sage green like immense olives; no doubt more 
would have been laid. They were quite abnormal in colouring, for 
one of the great peculiarities of the eggs of the Little Bustard is 
their remarkably smooth and brightly polished surface. I have 
eggs over thirty years old which still retain this lustre. The 
normal colouring is a brilliant olive green sometimes almost plain 
but generally clouded with brown, chiefly at the larger end. Four 
is the full complement laid, but I have known of nests with three 
eggs and some in which only two eggs were laid. 
The day I found this nest with two eggs was dull and wet with 
heavy gusts of wind, thoroughly unsuited for photographing such 
a subject. It was 18 May, and by a remarkable chance, eminently 
characteristic of the ups and downs of birdsnesting, a few hours 
later on the very same day, I came across a second nest about 
3 miles from the first one. It would be hard to imagine a greater 
contrast than it presented, for it was on a bare and open hillside, 
fallow ground with practically no cover on it save that afforded by 
some scattered patches of rank herbage. The nest was constructed 
