84 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



to try to explain, if they are likely to carry out in- 

 cubation in certain places. I do not state that this 

 bird has hatched out, but if certain signs are to be 

 depended on, and I think they are, there is the 

 more than bare probability that it has done this, 

 unknown to all. A pair is before me as I write, 

 exquisitely set up, and they were procured from one 

 of the counties above-mentioned. They were shot, 

 the male and female, resting on the bare bough of 

 a low scrub fir that overhung the margin of a 

 large shallow sandy pool, but not by myself. 



The eggs, four in number, vary in their ground- 

 colour, as most eggs do, from buff to olive, or buffish- 

 white spotted with dark red brown and pale grey 

 brown. If any of my readers who are egg col- 

 lectors should have the luck to find a clutch like 

 this, they may be sure they have the eggs of the 

 Green Sandpiper, so called from the greenish tone 

 of the dark parts of its plumage. I think that the 

 name of Wood Sandpiper ought to have been given 

 to this bird instead of the one that it has. The 

 Green Sandpiper is, as a very old acquaintance 

 gone home long ago used to say, " the very ac- 

 tivity " among the trees and bushes. 



Snipes also perch at times. What is there to pre- 

 vent their doing so ? Their lissom toes cling to any- 

 thing, as will those of a Jack-hern. A Moorhen 

 can, when it thinks fit, stand on one leg and hold 

 its food in the other, when it feeds like a parrot. I 

 have seen it do this, and the toes are certainly long 

 enough. Some writers have denied this fact, simply 



