TWO KINDS OF PLOVER 173 



enough to be worth reproducing. The Greenshanks 

 are very restless feeders, running about in the water, 

 here, there, and everywhere. While I was waiting to 

 take the photograph of the Greenshank alluded to 

 above, I saw a Snipe come leisurely out of the rushes 

 on the opposite side of the stream, and walk in a 

 clumsy way to the water's edge. The bird looked very 

 lethargic in its movements when compared with the 

 agility of the Greenshanks, and seemed to carry its long 

 bill as though it were too heavy for its head ; after 

 prodding about on the bank of the stream for a minute 

 or so it betook itself back to the seclusion of the rushes. 

 It seemed difficult to believe that this was the same bird 

 we had seen but a day or two before showing off its 

 powerful flight above the marsh. Occasionally the 

 sharp pit of the Pied Kingfisher would attract our 

 attention as he hovered over the stream, although this 

 was rather out of his usual beat, and he would have to 

 return a long way over the estuary to reach his home 

 on the Salt River. 



As in many parts of England, no bird showed itself 

 more frequently on rough uncultivated ground than 

 the Stone-chat. The South African Stone-chat is very 

 similar in plumage, as in its nesting habits, to the bird 

 with which we are familiar at home, and vvhere there 

 are a pair of these birds about, very little searching is 

 required to find them. Bontroche, the Dutch Colonists 

 call this bird, which means parti-coloured, the name 

 applying evidently to the male bird alone, for the female, 

 like that of the bird with which we are familiar in 

 England, is soberly coloured. The male bird, figured 

 in the illustration on plate 47, had a caterpillar in its 



