nest-building is commenced soon after, eggs being laid towards the end of 

 the month. The nest is rather deep, but scantily lined, and consists of a 

 deepish hollow in the middle of some bunch of heath or grass lined with a 

 few heather stalks and pieces of dry grass. The Whimbrel lays four eggs, 

 rather like small eggs of the Curlew, but generally more handsomely marked. 

 They are sometimes pale olive green in ground-colour, sometimes rich green, 

 and sometimes pale brownish buff, blotched and spotted with reddish-brown 

 or olive brown surface-markings, and underlying markings of greyish brown. 

 Most of the larger blotches of colour are on the large end of the egg, but 

 sometimes the spots are evenly distributed over the entire surface. A very 

 handsome variety has the ground-colour pale clear green, richly blotched with 

 reddish brown surface-marks and a few buffish underlying spots. They vary in 

 length from 2^52 to 2'2 inch, and in breadth from 174 to i'6 inch. 



Young in down are pale buffish grey, mottled rather faintly with dark 

 brown on the upper parts ; only one brood is reared in the year. The male 

 bird guards the nest most jealously, and rises screaming in the air to chase 

 off any bird which comes within a radius of nearly a hundred yards of the 

 nest. He will fearlessly chase off the Black-backed Gulls, buffeting them and 

 driving them successfully from the vicinity of the nests ; even the Skuas are 

 unmercifully mobbed by this pugnacious little bird. When leaving the nest 

 the female usually runs but a few yards before taking wing, so that the nests 

 are not difficult to find. 



