124 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



a few feet above tlie sea and quite close to it. The nest of the Dunlin is usually 

 in a tussock of grass, a roughly made hollow, inartistically lined with grass, but 

 often carefully concealed in the herbage. Four eggs are the full number (but I 

 have known three to be incubated), much pointed at the small end, varying from 

 pale greenish-buflf in ground colour to brown-bufif, boldly dashed with neutral tint 

 and rich dark umber-brown, mostly at the larger end. The young birds, like 

 those of nearly all waders, can run almost as soon as they are out of the egg, and 

 the old birds are very solicitous about (incubated) eggs and young. I have shot 

 birds of both sexes oflF the eggs. 



It is usually a tame and confiding little bird, till persecuted and shot at. I 

 have had them nearer to me than the end of my rod, on the burns of the North- 

 umberland moors and upper Clyde. On our shores they are usually nearly as 

 tame early in the autumn. Huge flocks are to be seen at that season, feeding on 

 the exposed mud at low water, or flying in graceful curves — looking like a distant 

 curling cloud of smoke — now white, when the under sides are turned to the 

 spectator — now, on the other tack, dusky. Some of these flocks number several 

 thousands of individuals, and are largely composed of young birds, for the Dunlin 

 remains e?i garfon longer than most waders, and does not attain mature plumage 

 till the second spring. Dunlins probe the mud like Snipe for the concealed good 

 things that lurk below, and feed on any small marine creatures or worms. At high 

 tide they may be seen on the sand, tripping prettily backwards and forwards with 

 the advancing or retreating wavelets, and picking up the minute Crustacea, etc., 

 as the water leaves them. They are often shot, which seems a pity, as they 

 cannot be said to give any sport. Some seem to consider it " sport," however, to 

 rake a flock of Dunlins on the ground, with no other purpose than to see how 

 many completely innocent li\es can be uselessly taken with one charge of shot. 

 If they were of any use when shot, there would be some justification, but the 

 Dunlin is not a delicately flavoured bird for the table, and there is nothing of 

 him. I once had the misfortune to kill a dozen and a half, in order to secure a 

 Curlew Sandpiper in three-quarter summer dress — and I ate them, in a pie, as a 

 duty, but have never wanted to regale on Dunlins again. 



The note of the Dunlin is a shrill, unmusical, monosyllable ; at the nest they 

 occasionally utter a pretty little trill. 



