S4 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



but it is known to nest in both Orkney and Shetland. The nest 

 is said by Dr. Fleming to be placed in exposed parts of a moor. 

 The eggs are four in number, and, though very much less in size, 

 very much like the darker varieties of the Curlew's eggs. The 

 Whimbrel is probably a fast decreasing species. 



191. SPOTTED RED-SHANK (Totanusfuscus). 



Spotted Snipe, Dusky Sand-piper, Black-headed Snipe, Cour- 

 land Snipe. A bird which varies mnch in plumage according to 

 season, being almost black in the summer, but only an occa- 

 sional visitor, and scarcely anything known certainly of its nest 

 or breeding habits. 



192. COMMON RED-SHANK (Totanns calidris). 



Redshank Sandpiper, Teuke, Pool Snipe, Sand Cock, Red- 

 legged Horseman, Red-legged Sandpiper. One of the most 

 familiar of all our birds to me in my youth. Many long days 

 have I spent amid their haunts on the Essex Saltings. Their 

 nests are very slightly constructed of a few bits of grass amidst a 

 tuft of herbage, or in a small hole or cavity which is sheltered by 

 some of the taller-growing marine plants. The eggs are usually 

 four in number, occasionally but two or three, of a cream-colour 

 (sometimes dashed with a somewhat warmer hue) spotted and 

 speckled with dark brown. The spots are less and more nume- 

 rous than in the case of the Peewit's egg. In the case of the 

 last nest I found, about two years since, the old bird suffered me 

 to walk within a yard of her before taking flight. When the 

 young are newly hatched the parent birds betray excessive jea- 

 lousy and anxiety at the approach of either man or dog to their 

 resort. They have sometimes come and settled on the ground 

 within two or three paces of me, and, at others, flown so directly 

 towards me, as to suggest the possible intention of attacking me, 

 piping most plaintively and incessantly the while. This conduct 

 is designated by the term " mobbing/' on the Essex marshes. 

 Fig. 4, plate VIII. 



193. GREEN SAND-PIPER (Totanus ochropus). 

 It is supposed that a few of these birds may remain with us 

 to breed ; but far the greater part of those which are customa- 

 rily seen about the sides of our smaller streams and ditches and 

 canals, are known to return far to the north to produce their 

 eggs and voung. I believe no authenticated instances of its 

 nesting with us are known, but a few very young birds have been 

 met with under circumstances which seemed to leave no doubt 

 that they must have been hatched in the neighbourhood. The 

 nest is said to be placed " on a bank, or among grass, on the side 

 of a stream," and the eggs, four in number, to be of a greenish 

 ground-colour, spotted with different shades of brown, light and 

 dark, and vnth I>TOV. 



