274 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



Dovrefjeld, contained eggs during the latter half of May. These 

 nests were in open parts of the marshes, and were made more 

 elaborately than is usual amongst this order of birds, the hollow 

 being deeper and more carefully lined. He also remarked that 

 the lining in each nest resembled the colour of the eggs it con- 

 tained, the darker varieties being laid on withered leaves of the 

 willow, the paler ones on dry grass. The eggs are four in 

 number, buffish white in ground colour, densely mottled and 

 spotted with rich chocolate - brown and paler brown, and with 

 underlying markings of gray. They are pyriform in shape, and 

 measure on an average r"3 inch in length by 'g inch in breadth. 

 Both birds assist in the task of incubation, and only one brood is 

 reared in the year. As soon as the young are reared the broods 

 and their parents form into small flocks. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Tringa, with the bill very flat and 

 wide, and more than a fourth of the length of the wing, and with 

 little or no white on the secondaries and upper tail coverts. 

 Length, 6J^ inches. 



