222 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



May, and fresh eggs may be obtained from about the middle to 

 the end of that month. Further north the eggs are laid much 

 later. The nest is generally made on a patch of dry ground close 

 to the swampSj amongst heath, sedge, and coarse rank grass, and 

 often in the immediate neighbourhood of a small willow thicket, 

 in which the parent birds from time to time alight. It is only a 

 hollow in the ground, carelessly lined with a few scraps of 

 withered herbage. The eggs are four in number, creamy white, 

 pale buff, or very pale olive in ground colour, boldly blotched 

 and spotted with rich reddish brown, and with a few underlying 

 markings of pale brown. They measure on an average i '45 inch 

 in length by i 'o inch in breadth. The female sits closely, usually 

 remaining on her eggs until the last moment. Only one brood 

 is reared in the year, and both parents tend the chicks with 

 equal solicitude. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Totanus, with the lower back 



nearly the same colour as the mantle, and the prevailing colour 

 of the upper tail coverts, axillaries, and under wing coverts, 

 white. Length of wing, 4^5 to 5'i inches. Length, 8}^ inches. 



