shore. These flocks are very hard to approach, as a number of birds usually 

 act as sentinels, and invariably warn the flock of the approach of danger. The 

 Lapwing is a great enemy to the egg-poacher, as many a keeper has been warned 

 by the clamour of these birds that some intruder has appeared on the scene. 



About the beginning of April the birds select a nesting site, and eggs 

 may be found from the first week of that month till the beginning of June. 

 In a mild early spring eggs may be taken during the last week in March. 

 I have a full clutch taken in Tweedsmuir on the 24th March 1894, and in 

 1887 I took three nests near the Lake of Monteith on the 23rd of March. 



The nest is a slight depression in the ground, very sparingly lined with 

 a few bits of grass, bent, dead rushes, or bits of dry moss. It is usually in 

 the open, often on the bare turf, sometimes on the top of a molehill or tuft 

 of peaty soil, sometimes on the dry sods beside a sheep-drain, or on the 

 top of a ridge in a ploughed field, but very seldom concealed by any weed 

 or tuft of grass, the bird no doubt trusting to the protective colouring of the 

 eggs, which harmonises so exactly with the surroundings. 



The eggs are usually four in number, though five are found on rare 

 occasions. They are subject to much variation both in colouring and 

 shape, some specimens being long and thin, and others almost round. The 

 ground colour varies from pale buff to buffish brown or olive brown, 

 sometimes pale green or olive green, thickly blotched and spotted with very 

 dark brown, and with a few purple-grey under-markings. On some eggs the 

 markings are small and distributed evenly over the whole surface, while on 

 others they are large blotches running into each other, and forming irregular 

 patches of colour ; and this type of egg has all the markings in a ring round 

 the large end of the egg. Occasionally a pale bluish-green egg is found, with 

 only a few faint blue-black spots on it in fact, only half- coloured. I have 

 taken two or three of these specimens from clutches of full-coloured eggs. 

 This type is sometimes found, dropped by accident, nowhere near a nest. 

 They vary in length from 2'o to r6 inches, and in breadth from 1-5 to 1-3 inch. 

 Incubation lasts from eighteen to twenty days, and the downy chicks leave 

 the nest as soon as they are hatched. 



Young in down are pale brown on the upper parts, thickly blotched and 

 spotted with black; they have white under-parts, with a blackish band across 

 the breast. They are extremely hard to find, as they exactly resemble a clod 

 of earth when they are crouching motionless on the ground. If picked up and 

 set down again they will not crouch, as a rule, but will run away as fast as their 

 legs can carry them, tumbling over every obstacle in their eagerness to escape. 



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