COMMON EEDSHANK. 3 



collection, taken chiefly by himself in Finland, measure from 1*72 by 1"2 inch to 

 1-65 by 1-12 inch.* 



Colonel W. Vincent Legge has published the following interesting notes on 

 the nesting habits of the Redshank in South-east Essex f : — " The Redshank lays 

 somewhat earlier than the Peewit. I found the first eggs (three in one nest) on 

 the 7th of April. They are very clamorous birds, quitting their nests when one is 

 yet a long way off, and thus rendering them difficult to find. No bird that I have 

 seen conceals its nest so cleverly as this one : it is formed in the centre of a green 

 tuft of grass. The herbage is beaten down to form at once the lining and 

 the bottom of the nest, and the surrounding blades are carefully bent over the top, 

 completely hiding the nest from view. The bird enters and leaves it at the side, 

 closing up the openings when frightened from it. The only traces of the nest are 

 a few tracks in the surrounding grass, where the bird has entered and departed 

 from it. A shepherd said to me, ' I always knows, sir, there's a Tooke's nest in 

 the grass when I sees these 'ere little roads in it.' The eggs, as far as I have 

 observed, are always four in number, but they vary much in character : they are 

 mostly of an ochre-yellow or a greenish yellow ground, with bluish grey spots, and 

 then blotted all over, especially at the larger end, with sepia : they are not so 

 thick as the eggs of the Peewit, measuring from one inch nine lines to one inch 

 eleven lines by one inch three lines. The latter I have found one inch six lines 

 in breadth, and they are more pointed. One clutch of Redshank's eggs had the 

 ground greenish white, with minute specks of brown over the whole surface, and 

 then large blotches and clouds of sepia round the larger end : these were very 

 much pointed, and the shells were very thin." 



The late Mr. E. T. Booth writes J : — " Redshanks usually return to their 

 breeding-haunts on the Norfolk marshes early in March : the 3rd is the earliest 

 date on which I have noted a pair or two showing themselves in the vicinity of 

 their summer quarters. The marshmen usually look upon the return of the 

 Redleg as one of the first signs of spring. In several of the Highland glens 

 I remarked the birds were seldom seen till a month or five weeks later ; but when 

 once they make their appearance, nesting-operations are speedily commenced. 

 The date at which eggs are laid varies -with the season. In the broad-district in 

 the east of Norfolk, I noticed in 1883 that the majority of the birds had their fuU 

 complement of eggs by about the 22nd of April ; the weather at the time was cold 

 with cutting east winds, and it is probable they were a few days later than usual. 



* ' History of the Birds of Europe,' vol. viii. p. 162. 



t " Oological Notes from South-east Esses," ' Zoologist,' 1867, p. 602. 



t ' Eough Notes on Birds observed in the British Islands, vol. ii. 



s2 



