COMMON REDSHANK. 143 



pretty sight to watch a flock of these sprightly birds tripping daintily over 

 the mud or marsh, their pure white under plumage contrasting strongly 

 with their bright orange-red legs. They are almost constantly in motion, 

 running here and there, pattering about the soft mud, boring into it with 

 their slender bills in search of food, or snapping at a passing insect. 

 Numbers of Redshanks are often caught in the flight-nets on the broad 

 salt-marshes on the Lincolnshire coast. In autumn and winter this bird 

 often congregates with other species, especially with Dunlins and T>odwits. 

 The Redshanks are the sentinels of the coast, and never fail to betray the 

 approach of danger to all the wildfowl congregated in their vicinity. 

 Numbers are shot in winter for food, but their flesh is only of poor quality. 



In this species males do not differ from females in the colour of their 

 plumage. At all ages and seasons the rump is white; the upper tail- 

 coverts and tail are white barred with dark brown; and the terminal 

 portion of the tail-feathers is suffused with chestnut. Neither do the 

 flight-feathers vary with age or season, the outer primaries being brown, 

 the inner primaries brown at the base, and white marbled with brown 

 towards the tip, whilst the secondaries are pure white, with concealed 

 marbled bases. The axillaries and under wing-coverts are always white. 



The adult in breeding-plumage has the rest of the upper parts dark 

 brown, barred, streaked, and spotted with buffish grey ; the underparts 

 are white, profusely streaked with dark brown on the chin, throat, and 

 breast, and sparingly so on the belly, and barred with the same colour on 

 the flanks and under tail-coverts. Bill orange, shading into black at the 

 tip ; legs and feet orange-red, claws black ; irides hazel. After the autumn 

 moult the head, mantle, scapulars, innermost secondaries, and the wing- 

 coverts are brown; the outer webs of the innermost secondaries and the 

 greater and median wing-coverts have narrow white margins, and are 

 spotted with dark brown. The whole of the underparts are pure white, 

 with a few slight streaks on the breast, flanks, and under tail- coverts. In 

 the young in first plumage the feathers of the upper parts (except those 

 already mentioned, which do not vary) are brown, margined with bufnsh- 

 white spots, each spot being emphasized with an obscure black base, whilst 

 the colour of the underparts is exactly intermediate between those of the 

 adult in summer and the adult in winter plumage *. Birds of the year 

 are scarcely distinguishable from adults in winter plumage, except that 

 some of the feathers of the upper parts have narrow white margins. In 



* Dresser's male in autumn of the Common Redshank, figured on plate 5G8, is 

 unquestionably a young bird in first plumage. As usual, he gives no explanation of 

 the changes of plumage which the bird he describes undergoes. In this species the moult 

 from young in first plumage to birds of the year takes place in September, earlier and 

 quicker than is usual with Sandpipers. It is therefore probable that Redshanks assume 

 the breeding-plumage and breed in their tir^t spring. 



