2 SCOLOPACIDyE. 



In autumn the coasts swarm with this bird, migrants from more northern 

 breeding-places ; but in spring the majority are compelled to leave, not being 

 able to find a suitable summer residence. This bird seems much attached to its 

 quarters, and often stays to breed in cultivated districts if they happen to be 

 flooded. In some places they retiu'n regularly to rear their young in their 

 ancient home, even though the marshes have given place to fields, and green 

 crops have replaced the reeds, rushes, and other swamp vegetation of former 



years 



" The breeding-season of the Redshank commences in April, and fresh eggs 

 may be obtained from the beginning of that month to near the end of May. 

 Saxby says that in Shetland he has never seen the eggs earlier than the 13th of 

 May. In Northern Euroj^e the laying-season is later ; and I have taken fresh 

 eggs on the 22nd of June in the extreme north of Norway. The Redshank is a 

 very sociable bird during the breeding-season, and numbers of its nests may be 

 found in a small area of suitable ground. In the pairing-season the cock bird 

 often soars into the air, and serenades his mate with a trilling sound, or amorously 

 displays his charms by bowing and strutting, opening and closing his wings, and 

 spreading his tail. At this season he sometimes alights on trees or even a post; and 

 Stevenson records instances of a bird of this species performing various mancEuvres 

 of courtship as he ran along the top rail of a gate. The site of the nest is on the 

 ground, often in the centre of a grass tuft, or beneath the shade of a tall weed or 

 little bush of heather. The nests are generally cunningly concealed, and arched 

 over by the siuTounding herbage, which falls in natural pendants over them. 

 Sometimes a site is chosen amongst the drifted rubbish above high-water mark. 

 The nest is very slight : in many cases the centre of the tuft is trodden down into 

 a receptacle for the eggs, but at other times a few dead bents, straws, or scraps of 

 moss, heath, or reed are placed as a lining to the selected hollow. The eggs are 

 four in number, rather large for the size of the bird, and pyriform in shape. 

 They vary in ground-colour from very pale buff' to rich ochraceous buff", and are 

 spotted and blotched Avith rich dark-brown surface-markings, and with underlying 

 spots of paler brown and grey. On some eggs a few streaky lines of dark brown 

 are pencilled on the large end. Most of the large markings are on the large end 

 of the egg, and some specimens are more finely and handsomely spotted than 

 others. They vary in length from I'D to 1'65 inch, and in breadth from 1"3 to 

 T'17 inch. They are not easily confused with the eggs of any other British bird, 

 being yellower in colour than those of the Raff or Great Snipe, which they 

 somewhat resemble. Only one brood appears to be reared in the year." 



!Mr. H. E. Dresser states that a fair series of eggs of this species in his 



