4 ■ SC0L0PACID.5:. 



little pools are necessary for these birds, as they find their food here, which 

 consists of small diptera and their larvce which inhabit them. They also seek 

 food on the sea shore, though never as regularly as at the little fresh-water pools. 



"The birds themselves revealed their nests to us in the same manner as 

 stated in the case of Tr. temminckii. As soon as an individual was seen running 

 by the pools or on the shore, we had only to" watch it with particular attention 

 till it had done feeding, after which it immediately flew directly to its nest, which 

 was rarely more than a hvmdred yards away, but yet so concealed, that it would 

 have been difficult or even impossible to discover it without the bird's assistance. 



" What is here stated may, perhaps, serve as a hint to those naturalists who, 

 in future expeditious, may find an opportunity of meeting with Tr. canutus and 

 Tr. suharquata during their breeding-season. Indeed, I have no doubt that had 

 Feilden adopted the same method when he was surrounded by breeding Tr. canutus 

 in Grinell Land, in June and July 1876, he would have discovered the nests here 

 also, with equal facility. If I had been acquainted with the behaviour of the Tringa 

 genus at theii" nests when at Tamso in the Porsangerfjord in 1872, I should not 

 have had to search in the grass for hours for the nests of Tr. miniita, which I 

 knew were there. 



" The nests lay quite exposed among heather or sparse grass and were more 

 carefully built than is the case Avith Tr. temminckii. One nest especially was 

 ingeniously constructed of fine grass stalks, which formed a deep cavity for the 

 eggs, and had not a little in common with the nest of Anthus cervinns, wth which 

 species Tr. minuta partly shared the locality. I watched the bird whilst it was in 

 the act of building this nest ; this was done amidst incessant twittering, and it is 

 very likely that this was the male bird, although, as I learned subsequently, the 

 female also utters the same notes. 



" The number of the eggs was always four. On the whole their colouring 

 agrees with those of Seebohm and Harvie-Brown, figured in the ' Ibis ' for 1876 

 (pi. vii.). They are distinguished from those of Tr. temminckii by their constantly 

 larger and violet-brown spots. Their ground-colour was also of a somewhat 

 darker olive-brown than in those of the latter species, and the markings had a slight 

 tendency to Avind round the surface, as is the case Avith the eggs of the Gallinago 



family, Tr. striata, &c Both males and females have incubation-spots 



and both must therefore share the duties of incubation, though probably these 

 fall chiefly on the male. At two of the three nests the sitting birds were shot 

 and both proved to be males. On the other hand Seebohm remarks that he only 

 noticed the female near the nest, and in his opinion the latter alone attends to 

 incubation. 



