44 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



In all cases where I have found young snipe there 

 was but one old bird, the female, no doubt. In some 

 instances I have spent an hour with the young birds 

 by me, or in my hands, waiting for the other parent 

 to appear; and I am almost convinced that the care 

 of the young falls wholely on the female. 



The redshank, that graceful bird with a beautiful 

 voice, breeds here in most years, and is in a per- 

 petual state of anxiety so long as a human figure 

 remains in sight. A little while ago the small vari- 

 coloured stonechat or fuzz -jack, with red breast, 

 black head and white collar, sitting upright and 

 motionless, like a painted image of a bird, on the 

 topmast spray of a furze bush, then flitting to 

 perch on another bush, then to another; for ever 

 emitting those two little contrasted sounds the 

 gutteral chat and the clear, fretful pipe had 

 seemed to me the most troubled and full of care 

 and worries of all Nature's feathered children so 

 sorrowful, in spite of his pretty harlequin dress ! Now 

 his trouble seems a small thing, and not to be regarded 

 in the presence of the larger, louder redshank. As 

 I walk he rises a long way ahead, and wheeling about 

 comes towards me he and she, and by -and -by a 

 second pair, and perhaps a third; they come with 

 measured pulsation of the long, sharp, white -banded 

 wings; and the first comer sweeps by and returns 

 again to meet the others, clamouring all the time, 

 calling on them to join in the outcry until the whole 



