262 LONG-BILLED RUNNING BIRDS. 



bill forward along the surface of the mud when 

 feeding, a peculiarity it shares with the Avocet, 

 another bird with upward-curving bill. Sometimes 

 the Greenshank joins the Redshanks on the shore. 

 It resembles these birds in using a similar three- 

 syllabled note when disturbed, and, like them, has 

 long legs and a bill considerably longer than the 

 head. 



REDSHANK — 11 inches. This is the only common bird 

 with which the Greenshank might be confounded, but 

 the central flight-feathers, so conspicuously white in the 

 wings of the Redshank during flight, are, like the rest 

 of the flight-feathers, dark in the Greenshank. 



WATER-RAIL.— Plate 111. Length, 11^ inches. 

 Upper parts olive-brown, heavily streaked with black ; 

 face, throat, and breast dark gmy, barred with black 

 and white on the flanks and abdomen ; bill, long and 

 slender, red ; legs and feet pale brown. Resident. 



Eggs. — 7-11, creamy- white, lightly spotted with 

 red-brown and pale gray ; 1*4 x 1"0 inch (plate 133). 



Nest. — Of leaves of reeds or sedges, placed among 

 sedges or other coarse growth. 



The Water- Rail is a bird of marshland cover, 

 nesting among reeds and sedges in most parts of the 

 United Kingdom offering suitable places. It is, how- 

 ever, such an inveterate skulker that it is rarely seen, 

 preferring, when its haunts are invaded, to run and 

 dodge through the reeds, for which its slim, com- 

 pressed body is peculiarly fitted. If the bird by 

 chance be seen, the simple markings — brown above, 

 blotched black ; breast dull afrav ; and flanks mottled 



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