76 BRITISH B1KDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



the Partridge, and suggests the idea that itself is only a diminu- 

 tive bird of that species. They do not, however, pair, and their 

 nests are met with in many parts of the kingdom. Two years 

 since it was believed that at least two broods were reared on 

 certain lands in Moorsholm, in North Yorkshire. A small 

 depression in the ground is made, or found, and loosely lined 

 with bits of grass and dry stalks. Seven to ten, or possibly yet 

 more eggs, are laid, presenting much variety of appearance, but 

 usually of a faint cream-coloured ground, mottled and clouded in 

 some cases with red brown, and in others spotted with dark 

 brown spots, some of considerable size. Fig. S, plate VI. 



IV. 



159. GREAT BUSTARD (Otis tardd]. 



This noble bird, once abundant enough on our wide plains and 

 wolds in England, is now, I fear, almost extinct among us, as so 

 far as I am aware no very recent*capture of it has been an- 

 nounced. It used, before the gun became so common and so 

 fatal to birds of much interest to the ornithologist or others, to 

 be customarily pursued with greyhounds. These birds do not 

 pair, and their nest is said to be a mere natural saucer-shaped 

 hole in the bare ground. The eggs are seldom more than two, 

 or at most three, in number, and are of an olive-green ground, 

 blotched and spotted with two or three shades of brown, lighter 

 and darker. 



160. LITTLE BUSTARD (Otis tetrax). 



Only a casual, and not a summer visitor. 



IV. GRALLATORES. 



FAMILY I. CHAEADEIID^:. 



161. CREAM-COLOURED COURSER (Gursonus 



A very rare bird indeed. 



162. GREAT PLOVER ((#fe^^ crepitans). 



Stone Curlew, Norfolk Plover, Whistling Plover, Stone 

 Plover, Thick-knee. The Stone Curlew is a summer visitor, and 

 strictly a local one. The Nightingale, for instance, is very much 

 more extensively diffused than the bird just named. It is found 

 abundantly enough on the wide sandy plains of Norfolk, and I 

 used to hear it very commonly in the fields a few miles to the 

 north-west of Bury St. Edmunds. Besides the counties just 

 named, it is met with in parts of Essex and Kent, in Hampshire 

 and Cambridgeshire, and two or three others. Its peculiar shrill 



* Since this was written one instance has occurred. 



