484 GREENSHANK. 



Uist, Harris, and Lewis is astonishing. At that season it is very easily 

 discovered, for when you are perhaps more than a quarter of a mile dis- 

 tant, it rises into the air with clamorous cries, alarming all the birds in 

 its neighbourhood, flies round the place of its nest, now wheeling off" to a 

 distance, again advancing towards you, and at intervals alighting by the 

 edge of the lake, when it continues its cries, vibrating its body all the 

 Avhile. I once found a nest of this bird in the island of Harris. It was 

 at a considerable distance from the water, and consisted of a few fragments 

 of heath and some blades of grass, placed in a shallow cavity scraped in 

 the turf, in an exposed place. The nest, in fact, resembled that of the 

 Golden Plover, the Curlew, or the Lapwing. The eggs, placed with 

 their narrow ends together, were four in number, pyriform, larger than 

 those of the Lapwing, and smaller than those of the Golden Plover, 

 equally pointed with the latter, but proportionally broader and more 

 rounded at the larger end than either. The dimensions of one of them, 

 still remaining with me, are two inches exactly, by one inch and three- 

 eighths ; the ground colour is a very pale yellowish-green, sprinkled all 

 over with irregular spots of dark brown, intermixed with blotches of light 

 purplish-grey, the spots, and especially the blotches, more numerous on 

 the larger end. Although in summer these birds may be seen in many 

 parts of the islands, they are yet very rare, a pair being to be met with 

 only at an interval of several miles. In other parts of Scotland they are 

 seen chiefly in autumn, but are of rare occurrence.'" 



It is curious how nearly by this account the habits of the Greenshank 

 correspond with those of the Tell-tale Godwit, Totunus melanoleucos. 



ScoLOPAX Glottis, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 245 Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p. 270- 



ToTANUs Glottis, Temm. Man. d'Ornith. part ii. p. 659. — Selby, lllust. vol. ii. p. 86. 

 Greenshank, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 618. 



Male in Summer. Plate CCLXIX. 



Bill long, slender, compressed, tapering, slightly recurved. Upper 

 mandible with the dorsal line very slightly curved upwards, the ridge 

 convex, the sides grooved nearly to the middle, afterwards convex, the 

 edges inflected and directly meeting those of the lower mandible, the tip 

 narrowed and slightly deflected. Nostrils basal, linear, pervious, nearer 

 the edge than the dorsal line. Lower mandible with the angle very nar- 

 row and medial, beyond it the outline straight and ascending, the sides 



