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breeding-season, I was much struck with its resemblance to the Green Sandpiper. The wild 

 nature of the bird, its loud shrill cry, chee-wheet, chee-wheet, as it dashes through the air with the 

 speed of an arrow, and its partiality for woodland lakes and streams, all prove that it is more 

 closely allied to the Green Sandpiper than any other of the genus ; and, save that I always took 

 the eggs from the ground, the habits of the one bird seem exactly to resemble those of the other. 

 " The eggs of the Greenshank are often laid far away from water. I took a nest once upon 

 a stony rise right in an open forest, about one hundred yards from a little beck, laid on a thin 



layer of leaves. The eggs, always four in number, are very large and pyriform I 



observed, as soon as the young were hatched off, the old birds would lead them down to some 

 grassy swamp in the forest ; and I have met with three or four families in the same spot. It is 

 now that the wild cry of this bird is heard to perfection if you enter the swamp with a dog ; and 

 it is a pleasing sight to see how little fear the old birds display in endeavouring to beat the 

 intruder from the spot. No trying to allure him away by false pretences, as the Lapwing and 

 many other birds do, but a downright courageous attack, which never ceases till the dog is fairly 

 beaten off. I have often seen the Greenshank settle on a tree." 



Mr. J. Edmund Harting, who is specially devoting his attention to wading birds, writes 

 concerning the present species : — 



" The Greenshank is a very wary bird, and difficult to approach, except under cover ; but I 

 have sometimes put one up within shot from a salt marsh where the herbage was pretty tall and 

 thick. On one occasion, under shelter of a sea-wall, I was enabled to get pretty close to three 

 Greenshanks that were feeding on a mud-flat ; a peculiarity that I remarked in their manner of 

 feeding was, that they placed the bill upon the surface, the under mandible almost parallel with 

 the mud, and as they advanced scooped from side to side, after the fashion of the Avocet, leaving 

 a curious zigzag line impressed upon the mud. The food consists of small mollusks and beetles." 



We have translated the subjoined notice of the Greenshank from the recently published 

 work on the birds of Borkum by Baron Droste-Hiilshoff : — 



" In general those birds which arrive first in the autumn are lean, and the later arrivals very 

 fat. To this may be owing the fact that in the latter part of the migration the Greenshank 

 seldom leaves shallows. At ebb-tide it goes from puddle to puddle, and feeds on shrimps and 

 fish-fry, which abound in these waters. The rising tide brings fresh supplies of similar food, as they 

 then leave their hiding-places and spread over the pools and shallows. Wherever the shallow 

 water trickles away, this lively wader is found fishing. They become, however, lazier when the 

 sand-worm colonies are flooded ; for the shrimps do not come up to the sandy barren parts. Until 

 the sea again recedes this bird has a term of rest, though not real rest, for it is still on the move. In 

 the early part of the season of migration it proceeds regularly upwards, wherever it finds feeding- 

 places, being generally found following the rivulets from place to place up to the green parts ; and 

 at flood-tide they fly restlessly about, visiting the freshwater ponds and pools. It prefers, how- 

 ever, the open places, and is therefore seldom found in company with Totanus glareola, which 

 inhabits overgrown swamps. On the other hand, like the Curlews, it often visits the meadows, 

 and searches amongst the cow-droppings for food. In July and August I observed it on the 

 inner dunes, where Ononis reptans, Salix argentea, Lotus corniculatus, and Caricece take the plac 

 of the true dune-grass. They were then catching beetles in their usual lively manner, jumping 



