THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol.XV.] DECEMBER, 1891. [No. J 80. 



ON the HABITS of the STONE CURLEW or THICK-KNEE, 



(EDICNEMUS CREPITANS. 



By F. Menteith Ogilvie. 



The days of this bird, I fear, are numbered in this country. 

 A few years ago the district of which I write had twenty pairs 

 where now scarcely one can be found, and this notwithstanding 

 the fact that, except in a very few instances, they have not been 

 persecuted or molested. This, I believe, is partially owing to 

 the larger number of cattle kept on the heathy commons or 

 moorlands to which they resort, and which, no doubt, with their 

 attendant herdsmen, disturb and frighten them, and also to the 

 destruction of their eggs by Rooks. One of the greatest male- 

 factors a Southern keeper has to contend with in these days 

 is the Rook. It was not always so ; once the Rook was good 

 and harmless, and lived on grubs and worms. But now, all 

 this is changed: he has become depraved in his appetite; he 

 has found that eggs are easier to get, and form a daintier dish, 

 than wire-worms or grubs ; so eggs he must have. The amount 

 of damage a Rook does during the "egging time" is 

 simply incalculable. Starting with the Green Plover or Peewit, 

 Vanellus cristatus, he goes steadily through the list of eggs 

 provided, finishing up with the second laying of Partridges and 

 Pheasants. Nothing in the shape of eggs comes amiss to him— 

 fresh, rotten, or just on the point of hatching; all are devoured. 

 I have watched Rooks early in April hunting the meadows for 

 the unfortunate Peewit's eggs, quartering the ground with the 



ZOOLOGIST.— DEC. 1891. 2 N 



