OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 233 



sometimes searches amongst the droppings of cattle in the wet 

 meadows. It is also said to eat small frogs and tadpoles, 

 and the ova of fish. On the shore it eats crustaceans, and other 

 small marine creatures ; and in inland districts worms and snails 

 are sought. The late Mr. Swaysland on one occasion showed 

 me half-a-dozen small minnows, which he had just taken from a 

 dead Greenshank. Probably at its breeding grounds various 

 ground fruits are eaten. The note of this bird, uttered most per- 

 sistently during flight, I should describe as a shrill chee-weet oft' 

 repeated, but other observers attempt to express it as tyii, tyii. 



Nidification. — The breeding season of the Greenshank varies 

 a little according to latitude. In Scotland, as I know from 

 personal experience, the birds return in pairs to their accustomed 

 haunts early in May, and the eggs are laid towards the end of 

 that month. In the Arctic regions they are from a fortnight to 

 three weeks later. It is not at all a social bird, and the pairs are 

 scattered up and down over a wide range of country. Its breed- 

 ing grounds in our islands are on the marshy moors, sometimes 

 quite, close to the sea, and a district where lochs and little pools 

 abound is chosen by preference. In other countries it is said to 

 breed in marshy clearings of the pine forests. The nest, which is 

 not found without much search, unless stumbled on purely by 

 accident, is on the ground amongst the heath and other herbage, 

 either close to the water's edge or in a dry tuft of grass in the 

 swamp. It is merely a hollow lined with a few bits of dry 

 vegetable refuse. The eggs are four in number, and vary from 

 buff to very pale buff in ground colour, handsomely blotched and 

 spotted with rich dark brown, and underlying markings (many of 

 them large) of pinkish brown and gray. They are pyriform, and 

 measure on an average I'g inch in length by i'35 inch in breadth. 

 Only one brood is reared in the year. The parent birds become 

 excessively anxious and clamorous when their solitudes are 

 invaded, especially after the young are hatched, but as a rule they 

 keep at a safe distance, and often run about the moor bewailing 

 the intrusion of their haunt. As soon as the young are reared 

 a movement is made to the nearest coasts suited to their require- 

 ments, and the passage south shortly after begins, the birds 

 travelling much more leisurely than in spring. 



