WH1MBEEL. 141 



open moor, on or by some hillock, or low stump. A few 

 dry grasses are the materials of its composition, and it is 

 scarcely hid from view. 



The eggs are four in number, of a dark olive brown colour, 

 blotted with darker brown. They are wide at one end, and 

 much narrower at the other, and are placed in the nest 

 with the pointed ends inwards. They are considered good 

 eating, and being sought for on this account, the numbers of 

 the birds are diminished in consequence. The male and 

 female sit on them by turns. If disturbed from them they 

 make great outcries to distract the intruder. The young 

 leave the nest as soon almost as hatched, and quickly learn 

 to skulk most warily on the approach of danger. 



Male; weight, about fourteen ounces; length, one foot four 

 inches; bill, deep brownish black; pale brown, verging to red, 

 at the base of the upper mandible. It is above three inches 

 in length when the bird is fully adult. From its base to 

 the eye is a dark brown streak; above it and over the eye 

 is another light-coloured one; eye-brows, white, streaked with 

 brown; iris, dark brown; eyelids, white. Forehead, brown; 

 head on the crown, dark brown, with a light brown streak 

 passing backwards, occasioned by the feathers being broadly 

 margined with white; on the sides it is white, decked with 

 brown thickly and broadly. Neck on the back and nape, 

 dull brownish or ochreous white, with a dark streak on the 

 centre of each feather; chin, white; throat and breast, pale 

 brown, or greyish white above, on the sides, white, irregularly 

 barred across with brown; below it is nearly white, the feather 

 shafts being neatly streaked in a hair-like manner. Back 

 above, brownish black, the feathers margined with white and 

 ochreous white; on its lower part white. 



The wings have the first quill feather the longest. The 

 axillary feathers are barred with brown. Greater and lesser 

 wing coverts, dusky brown, with dull brownish white margins 

 to the feathers; primaries, greyish dusky black; secondaries 

 and tertiaries, dusky, barred with white. Tail, pale brownish 

 white or grey, the centre feathers darker, and transversely 

 barred with six or seven bars of a darker brown; the outside 

 feathers graduate nearly to white; upper tail coverts, white, 

 barred with dark brown; under tail coverts, nearly white, 

 with brown longitudinal streaks. Legs and toes, bluish black 

 or bluish grey; claws, black. 



The female has all the pale tints more ochreous. Length, 



