188 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



worms, Crustacea, and minute shell-fish, which it obtains 

 upon the sea-shore after the tide has receded. In spring the 

 flocks of these birds which at other times are met with, dis- 

 perse, and generally seek some inland district for the pur- 

 pose of nidification : the marshy moors and wastes of the 

 north of England and Scotland and the adjacent islands, 

 furnish them with many suitable localities, and in sucli 

 situations the nest is placed under or by the side of some 

 tuft or bush of grass or herbage. It is frequently inge- 

 niously concealed, but constructed with the smallest amount 

 of labour, often consisting merely of the moss or grass upon 

 which the eggs are laid rounded into form, though occa- 

 sionally a few pieces of heath or grass are added, but not 

 often. The eggs, four in number, and tapering greatly at 

 the smaller end, are of a pale greyish-green ground-colour, 

 spotted or dashed, chiefly at the thicker end, with rich 

 brown and brownish-grey. (PI. XII. fig. 82.) 



THE KNOT. Tringa canutus. The present is a rare bird 

 in the south of Europe, breeding in high northern latitudes, 

 but visiting our shores in autumn in considerable numbers, 

 and remaining during the winter. It frequents the shores 

 of the sea, bays, inlets, and the mouths of rivers, feeding 

 upon the minute bivalve shell-fish which it finds there. It 



