SPOTTED EEDSHANK. o 



a neighbouring tree, showing the full length of its slender legs, neck, and bill. 

 But it is not till it has young that all its powers of eloquence are fully brought 

 into play : it then comes far to meet any intruder, floating over him with a clear 

 cry that echoes through the forest, or that is heard over a great extent of marsh, 

 or it stands very near one, bowing its head, opening its beak quite wide in the 

 energy of its gesticulations. The eggs, four in number, are of a rich green 

 ground-colour when fresh, or sometimes of a bright brown. This year they were 

 laid hereabouts at the end of May. The young are probably carried into marshy 

 land as soon as they are hatched ; for there they are whilst they are still very 

 small. I am told that dry mounds rising out of swamps are sometimes chosen as 

 breeding-places. The nests I have described were found quite by good luck, 

 stumbled upon in walking through the forest, where the bird is scattered usually 

 at rather wide intervals ; one may see two or three pairs in the course of a long 

 day's walk. It is so wary that I have never succeeded in watching it to 

 its nest.' " 



Mr. H. Seebohm describes the eggs of this species as follows * : — " The eggs 

 of the Dusky Eedshank are four in number, and are laid late in May or during the 

 first half of June, sometimes later, according to season ; they are very handsome, 

 and vary in ground-colour from pale green to pale brown, heavily blotched and 

 spotted with rich sepia-brown, and with underlying markings of violet-grey and 

 brownish grey. On many eggs a few very dark brown hair-like lines and scratches 

 occur on the large end. Some eggs are so richly marked as to hide almost aU the 

 large end ; others are more evenly spotted over the entire surface. The markings 

 are generally bold and very clearly defined. The eggs are pyriform in shape, and 

 vary in length from 1"95 to 1"8 inch, and in breadth from 1-35 to 1'25 inch. 

 They cannot readily be confused with those of any other British bird. Eggs of 

 the Great Snipe perhaps resemble them most closely, but they are never so green, 

 and are, on an average, slightly smaller." 



Mr. H. E. Dresser states that the measurements of a series of twenty eggs 

 of this species in his collection, obtained in Lapland, vary from 1-95 by 1-27 

 inch to 1-8 by 1-22 inch.f 



* ' History of British Birds,' vol. iii. p. 147. 



t ' History of the Birds of Europe,' vol. viii. p. 172. 



