478 SANDPIPERS AND RELATED SPECIES 



nesting localities were observed in the early days of the breeding 

 season, and these constantly received additions to their number 

 up to and about the middle of July, when they left the country. The 

 last days before their departure these birds " proved unusually shy, and 

 were often to be seen tumbling in flocks enormously high up in the 

 air. Birds shot out of such a flock generally proved to be males, 

 nearly all of them with brooding spots ; this also seems to indicate 

 that the males, after having had their share of the breeding duties, 

 leave the further care of the offspring to the females." 1 Adult 

 females were observed up to August 8th, which, by their behaviour, 

 were still tending their young. As late as August 22nd three 

 immature birds were secured. These were able to fly, but two of 

 them still had down at the base of the bill. 2 The probability is that 

 the males help in tending the young until the latter are partly grown, 

 and then leave them to the females. 



The adults have been observed to display in the so-called injury- 

 feigning device when their young were endangered. 3 



The male is quarrelsome with birds of his own kin, as well as 

 others even skuas which appear within his domain. "Uttering 

 a short cry, he will fly up and pursue the intruder in the most violent 

 manner, and often he would follow it so far away that I could not see 

 them even through my field-glass. He would soon return, and having 

 triumphantly fluting circled around several times, go down to 

 his mate." 4 



The knot appears to breed on sparsely covered stony tablelands. 

 The nest is described by Mr. Birulia as a saucer-shaped hollow lined 

 with lichen. 5 Its extraordinary shyness and wariness may, like that of 

 the curlew-sandpiper, be due to its nesting in exposed situations 

 where vegetation is too scanty to provide concealment. 



The eggs are apparently normally four or sometimes three in 

 number. In shape they are somewhat pyriform, and the ground- 



1 Manniche, op. cit., p. 13(5. 2 Ibid., p. 135. 



3 H. Chichester Hart, Zoologist, 1880, p. 205; and Manniche, op. cit., p. 134. 



4 Manniche, op. cit., p. 133. 6 Dresser, Eggs of the Birds of Europe, p. 703. 



