180 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



winter; in Ireland also it is occasionally met witk, but has 

 not been known to breed there. It has a most extensive 

 European and extra-European distribution. It breeds in 

 marshy places, making a slight nest in some hollow or de- 

 pression, and laying four eggs, which are described as being 

 of a very pale yellowish-green colour, sprinkled throughout 

 their entire surface with irregular spots of dark-brown and 

 blots of light purple-grey: the markings chiefly at the 

 larger end. Sir William Jardine, an author from whom 

 we have frequently and largely quoted, has some interesting 

 remarks upon the nidification of the Greenshank in this 

 country. He says, " A few years since, authentic accounts 

 of its nidification in Britain were wanting; when, in the 

 summer of 1834, several pairs were met with breeding, by 

 myself and Mr. Selby and some others, during an excur- 

 sion to Sutherlandshire ; the season however being advanced, 

 the young only were procured, which did not differ from 

 similar states of the Sandpipers, except in the down being 

 of a grey or hair-brown colour, instead of the more umber 

 and ochreous tints which characterize the same state in the 

 Redshank. The nest was not seen, but the places selected, 

 and where we found the young, were in low marshy hollows, 

 in one instance surrounded with brushwood." 



