GEEENSHANK. 3 



down close above one's head with a swoop, and then shooting up into the air 

 almost perpendicularly." 



The late Dr. Saxby gives the following interesting account of his discovery of 

 the eggs of this species in Shetland * : — " The Greenshank, though a regular 

 autumn visitor to Shetland, and scarcely to be considered a common species, yet 

 occasionally remains to breed. I had several times obtained undoubted specimens 

 of the eggs from the shops in Lerwick, and once from Yell, but it was not until 

 the 31st of May, 1871, that I found the nest, and then it was almost by accident. 

 1 was wandering along the margin of a small pool of water, where I had so often 

 searched in vain that, although the bird was clamouring overhead, I was paying 

 more attention to the sunset than to the ground. Presently, at my very feet, out 

 flew the mate of the noisy fellow, now close at hand, leaving exposed its four 

 beautiful eggs, lying on a little dry grass in a cavity between two tufts of coarse 

 weeds ; a welcome sight indeed, after so many years' fruitless search. The eggs 

 were long and pointed ; their average length one inch ten lines, their breadth one 

 inch three lines ; in colour they were white, tinged with yellowish green, spotted 

 all over, and blotched at the large end with rich warm amber-brown and brownish 

 purple, each of several shades. I have since obtained almost exactly similar 

 specimens from Sutherlandshire." 



The late Mr. H. W. Wheelwright -writes as follows respecting the breeding 

 habits of this species in Lapland f : — " But the finest and perhaps one of the 

 commonest of our waders here was the Greenshank {Tot. glottis, Bech. ; ' glutten,' 

 Sw. ; ' vikkia,' Lap.), which came up here among the earliest in the spring, and 

 left certainly the earliest in the autumn. As I had now a good opportunity of 

 studying the habits of this bird in the breeding-season, I was much struck with 

 its resemblance to the Green Sandpiper. The wild nature of the bird, its loud 

 shrill cry ' chee-wheet, chee-wheet,' as it dashes through the air with the speed of 

 an arrow, and its partiality for Avoodland lakes and streams, all prove that it is 

 more closely allied to the Green Sandpiper than any other of the genus, and, save 

 that I always took the eggs from the ground, the habits of the one bird seemed 

 exactly to resemble those of the other. The eggs of the Greenshank are often 

 laid far away from water. I took a nest once upon a stony rise right in an open 

 forest, about one hundred yards from a little beck, laid on a thin layer of leaves. 

 The eggs, always four in number, are very large, pyriform ; ground colour stone 

 yellow-green, dashed all over with dark brown and pale purple-grey, especially at the 

 thick end. I observed as soon as the young were hatched otf, the old birds would 



* ' Birds of Shetland,' p. 196. 



t 'A Spring and Summer in Lapland,' by "An Old Bushman," pp. 351, 352. 



