9A OUR RARER BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS. 



It is a pretty little structure, built with dry grass, 

 stalks, moss, and rootlets on a foundation of 

 slender twigs, and lined internally with willow 

 down and sometimes hairs and feathers. The 

 interior is deep, smooth, and beautifully shaped. 



The eggs, numbering from four to six, are of a 

 very pale bluish-green ground colour, spotted with 

 orange-red about the larger end, and sometimes 

 streaked with dark brown. In addition they are 

 also marked with an underlying colour of pale 

 greyish-brown. 



The smaller size and black chin of the parent 

 bird readily distinguish the nest from that of 

 either the Twite or Linnet. 



REDSHANK. 



THIS bird is by no means rare, but, in spite of 

 being a tenacious lover of favourite old breeding- 

 haunts, is gradually being banished from some of 

 them. On Herring Fleet Marshes it is estimated 

 that it has decreased two-thirds during the last 

 ten or fifteen years. I have visited its nesting- 

 grounds in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Westmoreland. 

 In the last-mentioned county a small colony has 

 lived all the year round for some time in a 

 secluded little valley not far from Kirkby Stephen. 

 I visited the place last spring, and found five 

 or six pairs living on a few acres of peat 

 bog covered with rushes, bent grass, and fringe 

 moss, drained by a small, sluggish stream. They 

 were surrounded by dry hills and rocks, and one 

 could not help wondering why they had estab- 

 lished themselves at such a spot, when there were 



