CURLEWS, SANDPIPERS, AND PLOVERS 



407 



difficult to And were it nut that the bird itself betrays its whereabouts by its 

 noisy anxiety. Generally it is merely a depression in a tuft of grass or rushes, 

 hidden by the bending of the stems. The four eggs, yellowish with purplish 

 blotches, are laid in April and May, and hatch out in sixteen days. As soon as 

 hatched the young follow the mother in search of food, which consists of water- 

 insects, grasshoppers, beetles, worms, snails, and the tender parts of plants. The 

 redshank is resident in the British Isles and in some parts of central Europe, 

 but is probably only a bird-of-passage in the south. Its principal breeding-places 

 are, however, in Scandinavia, where it ranges up to 70° N. latitude, in Russia up to 

 Archangel, and in Siberia. The redshank is 10 inches long, and easily recognisable 

 by its bright red feet, the beak being red at the base and black at the point. The 

 secondaries are brownish white, the greater and median wing-coverts are flecked 





with white, while the lower part of the back and the whole under surface are white. 

 The sandpiper, a central European relative of the redshank, ranges into Lapland. 

 The greenshank is also a northern bird, but mainly Asiatic. Another member of 

 the group, the little ringed plover, inhabits Lapland and Iceland, but does not 

 extend much farther north than the Arctic Circle : while the dotterel {JEgiaMtis 

 morinella) dwells in the barren country bordering the mountain snows. The 

 latter breeds in the British Isles, in Scandinavia, and in the Russian and Siberian 

 tundras, as well as in a few localities on the mountains of central Europe. There 

 is no nest, the three or four stone-coloured eggs being laid on dry grass or moss 

 which has not even been trodden down. Flocks of dotterel migrate through 

 Germany in autumn, to winter on the shores of the Mediterranean. The old birds 

 regularly arrive in Pomerania in the second half of August, but the young ones a 

 little earlier. They stay until September and October, then move farther south, 



