350 CHARADRITDZ 
especially when suddenly frightened, yet from ambush I 
have seen Greenshanks skimming over the surface of the 
water with slow and steady strokes of the wing. 
Voice. —If the nesting-grounds are too closely approached 
this bird utters a harsh scolding cry, syllabled chee-weet, 
chee-weet. The alarm-note, heard over the slob-lands by 
night as well as day, consists of a succession of piping cries, 
rather monotone in character, and resembling the syllables 
chi-chii-chi-chi-chi-chi, each note being strongly and evenly 
accented. 
| 
Fig. 47.—HEAD OF GREENSHANK. 11 Nat. size. 
Food.—The mixed diet consists of crabs, shrimps, sand- 
eels, and other little fishes! found in shallow waters. Shell- 
fish, worms, and insects, are also eaten, the last being 
sometimes obtained at a little distance from the beach. 
Nest.—The site selected for breeding-purposes is usually 
not far from the edge of a fresh-water lake, a pond, or a river, 
and the nest is generally built amid coarse grasses and other 
vegetation. The eggs, four in number, are rich buff-colour, 
blotched and spotted with brown and purple-grey, and are 
among the most beautiful eggs belonging to the Order 
Limicole. 
Heretofore the Greenshank has not been discovered 
breeding in England, Wales, or Ireland, but in Scotland it 
is known to nest in the following counties :—Perthshire, 
Inverness-shire, Ross, Argyll; Sutherland, and Caithness. It 
also breeds in both the Outer and Inner Hebrides, but not 
' T have found the remains of small fishes in several gizzards of this 
species and of the Redshank. 
