where the Thick-knee still breeds in tolerable abundance, 

 I have frequently seen considerable assemblages in early 

 autumn when the birds were evidently congregating for 

 departure. As a rule, I have found the Thick-knee very 

 wary, but it occasionally attempts to avoid observation 

 by squatting or standing motionless, trusting, no doubt, 

 to the similarity of its inconspicuous upper plumage to its 

 surroundings for concealment. From my own experience 

 I think that this habit is generally adopted on the approach 

 of a wheeled vehicle or of a person on horseback ; and in 

 Spain, where the bird is very common, I should frequently 

 have passed solitary individuals if it had not been for 

 the glistening of their bright yellow irides in the sun- 

 light. Although these birds are specially addicted to 

 perfectly bare and open wastes, I have frequently seen 

 them flushed from plantations of young conifers on the 

 sands of Norfolk, and Professor A. Newton has recorded 

 a case in which a pair frequented a spot in a covert of 

 more than three hundred acres at Elveden, Suffolk, long 

 after it had become the centre of a flourishing wood. 

 The principal food of this species consists of beetles, 

 snails, mice, slugs, and worms, frogs also are very 

 favourite morsels, and the birds " flight " regularly at 

 nightfall from their diurnal haunts to the nearest marshy 

 lands in search of these delicacies. The eggs, two in 

 number, are laid upon the bare ground, and in colour 

 so closely resemble their sandy or flinty surroundings 

 that they are often very difficult to find. A most 

 interesting account of close observation of a pair of this 

 species at their nesting-place is given by Mr. A. Trevor- 

 Battye in a very fascinating work entitled ' Pictures in 



