2794 Birds. 



bred in great abundance. I find that the shells of those eggs which 

 are found on our high grounds are different in colour from those 

 which are laid in the meadows : the former are of a dark red- 

 dish tinge, like a stiff red marl upon which they are found ; the latter 

 have a light brown ground colour. Towards the middle of summer, 

 those birds that breed with us assemble together in flocks, and keep 

 almost exclusively to the meadows and low grounds. Worms consti- 

 tute their chief food, and it is amusing to watch them with a good 

 telescope as they are feeding on a wet, dewy morning. They 

 run along with great velocity, occasionally giving forth their loud 

 wild notes, and pulling out with great eagerness any delicious worm 

 that lies trailed along the turf: they are often so intent upon 

 their food, as to allow of a very near approach. From the middle of 

 August to the middle of October, the resident birds receive consider- 

 able accessions to their numbers, which I suppose are migrants from 

 their northern breeding grounds : these accessions consist principally 

 of young birds. During the winter months, flocks may be seen feed- 

 ing daily in the meadows, but exhibit a striking partiality to particu- 

 lar fields. When rambling by the Trent, on a cold wintry day, the 

 keen wind blowing about my cheeks, and the crisp sleet crumbling 

 beneath my feet, and one met an animated being (however small) as 

 one meets a welcome guest, how delighted have I been to watch the 

 manners and flight of a flock of these interesting birds. When 

 startled from a meadow, they rise into the air in a body, which 

 is changing its form almost every minute, and many of the positions it 

 assumes are graceful in the extreme. Now, the birds scatter them- 

 selves singly over the heavens, almost as far as the eye can reach, 

 which seem, as it were, completely dotted over with them ; — now, 

 they collect together in a group, and form a mass so closely packed, 

 that it seems almost impossible to penetrate it, and resembles a 

 large black cloud, sailing slowly along the air ; — now, the birds 

 stretch away into a different shape and form a thin, narrow line, appa- 

 rently elongated to many hundred yards, and presenting an appear- 

 ance like a long-drawn mark shown in high relief against a light blue 

 sky. Indeed, the body being ever in motion, varies in figure con- 

 tinually, and presents almost momently some new and beautiful posi- 

 tion. Towards the beginning of March, the winter birds depart, and 

 leave a few stragglers to pair and breed. 



Some years ago I was traversing our low grounds, when I per- 

 ceived, by the mournful actions of the parent birds, that I was near a 

 peewit's nest. After considerable search, I could find neither eggs 



