OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 241 



a dead Greenshank. Probably at its breeding grounds various ground fruits are 

 eaten. The note of this bird, uttered most persistently 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 breeding 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 upon purely by accident, is made 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 

 grey. They are pyriform, and measure on an average 1'9 inch in length by 1.35 

 inch in breadth. One brood only 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 requirements, 

 and the passage south shortly after begins, the birds travelli% much more 

 leisurely than in spring. 



Diagnostic characters — Totanus, with the bill upturned, the lower 

 back white, and the secondaries nearly uniform grey ; with the wing about seven 

 inches long, and the tarsus over two inches long. Length, 13 to 14 inches. 



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