516 SANDPIPERS AND RELATED SPECIES 



and a variable number of dark feathers appear quite irregular in 

 their distribution on the back. The latter character is more notice- 

 able in the redshank than the greenshank. These dark feathers, 

 arranged in no particular order, have a distinct value to the sitting 

 bird, as they break up the formal grey outline, and render the bird 

 indistinct even among green grass. I am fully convinced that colour 

 is far less important than pattern. The most highly protected of the 

 downy young of the Waders owe their invisibility to the obliterative 

 qualities of the pattern of their plumage rather than to colour. The 

 actual colour is of less importance than its arrangement and distri- 

 bution, i.e. coloration. The most effective patterns are those which 

 break up the outline either by irregular blotches or by longitudinal 

 or transverse stripes. 



When the young redshanks are hatched which is after twenty- 

 two days, the old birds become very bold, and more noisy than ever. 

 While the young ones hide by crouching in the grass, their parents 

 fly close around, repeatedly uttering their short sharp alarm-note 

 " quit-quit" Starting from a distant point they wheel swiftly up, and, 

 when overhead, hang almost motionless for a time, calling repeatedly. 

 They then circle round again, and again often both abreast fly 

 quickly up to hover scolding overhead as before. The young do not 

 always leave the nest on the day they are hatched, although I have 

 known them to do so, but I have also found them still in the nest 

 on the second day after hatching. 1 



If one visits a locality at hatching-time where many pairs of 

 redshanks are nesting, the noise made by the birds all scolding at 

 once is deafening, and makes one almost ashamed of being the cause 

 of so much turmoil. The scolding of one pair will generally bring up 

 others nesting in the neighbourhood to join in. 



I have never known redshanks to display in the so-called " injury- 

 feigning" device, but Mr. J. H. Brown, in a communication to the 

 Field, states that while he was sketching in the early morning in 



1 See also Zoologist, 1908, p. 369. 



