COMMON REDSHANK. 291 



with white, each feather having sixteen bars; the middle feathers 

 rather the longest. Tibial feathers long and downy. The stomach 

 contained the remains of small Crustacea, and I found a small fish 

 in the gullet." 



In the Orkneys, as I find from a manuscript note in Messrs 

 Baikie and Heddle's work, "one was shot by Mr Strang in Sanday, 

 in September, 1849." 



THE COMMON REDSHANK. 



TOT ANUS CALIDRIS. 

 Cam-glas. Clabhais feach. 



A VERY abundant species. It breeds plentifully in many inland 

 districts of the West of Scotland, usually at a considerable distance 

 from the sea, and sometimes in marshy places as much as a thou- 

 sand or twelve hundred feet above the sea level. I have found its 

 nest on the higher grounds of Renfrewshire within ten miles of 

 Glasgow. It also breeds at Ardlamont, in Argyleshire, from which 

 locality several specimens of both sexes, in summer plumage, as 

 well as young birds a few days old, have been obligingly obtained 

 for me by Mr J. Gilmour of Glasgow. On the banks of Loch 

 Lomond about fifteen or twenty pairs annually take up their 

 summer quarters in a grass park on the farm of Mid-Ross, where 

 I have seen their nests. In this locality the birds generally select 

 a tuft of ragweed, or other plant, under the shade of which the 

 eggs are deposited without much preparation in the way of nest- 

 making the few straws on which they are placed looking more 

 like an accidental lining than one designed by the owners. These 

 nests are exceedingly difficult to find. In very dry seasons, when 

 the loch is low, the Redshanks sometimes choose the line of high- 

 water mark for a breeding place, the nests, if they may be called 

 so, being placed on the mass of sticks and straws which are blown 

 on shore by the wind, and huddled together by the action of the 

 little waves. On the east coast of Scotland, I have obtained the 

 eggs of the Redshank in Forfarshire and Aberdeenshire. 



The habits of this vigilant and noisy shore bird have been so 

 often described, that it is hardly necessary to repeat them here. 

 Every sportsman accustomed to shore shooting knows the impos- 

 sibility of stalking either geese or wild ducks, should there happen 



