240 THE STONE-CURLEW 



Some nests contain more stones than others, depending possibly on 

 the quantity of stones in the sand when the "scrape" is formed, 

 although there is no doubt that stones are carried to the nest, and 

 this after the eggs are laid. Rabbit droppings are certainly intro- 

 duced by the birds, and of the many nests I have examined, I have 

 never seen one without this curious lining, sometimes a small 

 quantity only, but generally sufficient to form quite a conspicuous 

 feature in the nest. 



The majority of nests are in the open, far from bushes or cover of 

 any kind, but I have seen one among scattered gorse bushes, and one 

 in a new plantation of small mixed trees. These may possibly have 

 been the nests of birds that had nested in the same places in former 

 years before the plantations were formed. An instance of continued 

 adherence to an ancestral nesting-place is given by Stevenson, on 

 the authority of the late Professor Newton ; a pair of stone-curlews 

 continued to nest in the newly formed warren-covert at Elveden for 

 several years after the young trees were well established. 1 As a rule, 

 the eggs of ground-nesting birds especially of those species which do 

 not make a nest are protectively coloured. They do not necessarily 

 resemble a detail of the surroundings, but the prevailing scheme of 

 pattern irregular blotches of dark colour mingled with or overlap- 

 ping similar blotches of lighter colour tend to break up the formal 

 outline of the egg, and so give a quality of general indistinctness. 

 When danger threatens, the sitting birds of such species slip quietly 

 away and leave the eggs to take care of themselves. The advantage 

 of this is obvious, as the eggs are comparatively safe from discovery, 

 whereas the bird, even if not conspicuous in itself, would run the risk 

 of being frightened into flight, and so reveal the whereabouts of the 

 nest. The stone-curlew's two eggs are good examples of the 

 protected type a greyish stone ground, with blotches of dark greys, 

 browns, and black and although in themselves not particularly like 

 stones, they harmonise so well with the general environment of 



1 Stevenson, Birds of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 55. 



