THE GREENSHANK. l6 s 



whose cabinets serve no national and often no absolutely scientific purpose, 

 cannot content themselves with specimens from localities abroad, where they would 

 hardly be missed, of such eggs and birds as our grand-children may possibly not 

 know as British breeding species at all. The pestilent "British-taken" heresy 

 cannot be too often denounced : it is a heresy because Britain is in no sense a 

 zoo-geographical region, or even sub-region. 



Description of adult in summer ( $ , Yorkshire, May) : bill slightly turned 

 upwards, nearly black, lighter at base ; iris umber ; crown, neck, and sides of face 

 (except a whitish eyebrow) pale grey, with dark shaft-stripes and whitish edges 

 to the feathers ; back and shoulders of the same grey, coarsely and largely blotched 

 with black (in some fine examples almost entirely black) ; wings darker grey- 

 brown, with white shafts to the primaries, and narrow white edges to the shorter 

 primaries and secondaries ; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white ; tail 

 white, barred with black, except the central pair, which are grey in ground-colour ; 

 throat white; lower neck and chest grey-white, spotted boldly with blackish- grey; 

 sides of breast and flanks barred coarsely with V-shaped marks of the same colour ; 

 rest of under parts white; iris umber; legs and feet yellowish-grey. Length 13^ 

 inches, closed wing yj. 



The adult in winter (Foochow, 21, n, '86) has broader white margins to the 

 feathers of the upper parts ; the back has lost nearly all its black, but the scapulars 

 and tertiaries have light grey margins, interrupted by spots and incipient bars of 

 dark sooty-brown ; rump white, but upper tail-coverts barred with dark grey ; 

 under parts white, with a few blackish spots on the lower neck and breast. 



The young in autumn (Northumberland, 1878, etc.) have a rusty tinge to the 

 margins of the feathers of the back, and the chest is clouded with dusky ; the 

 central tail feathers are white, not grey, in ground colour; legs greenish-grey, 

 bluer at the joints. Length little over 12 inches, closed wing 7. 



The nestling (Lapland, June 21,) is light grey above, mottled with black, 

 and shewing a brown tinge on the shoulders and lower back ; a bold black stripe 

 from bill to eye, and a deal of black, almost forming a cap, on the crown; 

 under parts dingy white. 



In the Highlands, the Greenshank nearly always nests near the edge of a 

 loch, but in Scandinavia often on bare (i.e., treeless) hillsides, in an open forest 

 at some distance from water. A good account of it in the North is given by 

 Wheelwright (Orn. of Lapland, 351-2). The nest is a hollow, usually on bare 

 open ground, and entirely without cover, and is lined with a few leaves or blades 

 of grass. Not uncommonly, however, it seems to select a spot for its nest beside 

 a small boulder, or even between two good-sized stones. The eggs, four in 



