AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 97 



below Peterborough and Stamford. In England the 

 Greenshank may be considered as a bird of double 

 passage, never very abundant ; its autumnal visits 

 are by no means confined to our sea-coasts, in fact it 

 may be met with occasionally almost anywhere in the 

 neighbourhood of water, fresh or salt. In Scotland 

 and some of its adjacent islands a certain number of 

 Greenshanks annually breed on the open moorlands 

 and the shingly borders of lochs and streams ; for 

 details I must refer my readers to my standard and 

 frequently quoted authority, the 4th edition of 

 Yarrell. I have been informed by a friend that our 

 bird very frequently nests close to a boulder or block 

 of grey granite, no doubt for the protection afforded 

 by the similarity of the colour of the stone to that of 

 its own dorsal plumage. On the lower Guadalquivir 

 I have often met with this species, in pairs, in April 

 and the early part of May, feeding on the soft 

 mud left bare by the ebbing tide ; they are very 

 swift of foot and have the balancing movement of 

 the body more fully developed than any other bird of 

 my acquaintance. The Greenshank is very wary and 

 difl^icult of approach at most times, although it is, in 

 common with many other usually shy birds, reported 

 to be extremely bold in attacking those who approach 

 its nest or young ; it is a clamorous bird when 

 startled, or on its travels ; it seldom, in my experi- 

 ence, associates with other species or assembles in 

 large flocks of its own. The flesh of this bird 

 in autumn is infinitely superior, in my opinion, to 

 that of most Sandpipers. Baker, in his ' History of 

 Northamptonshire,' vol. i. p. 304, records the Cinereous 

 Godwit, Scolopax canescens (Montagu), as having 

 occurred in the neighbourhood of Davcntry ; I find 

 VOL. II. H 



