i6o 
The Irish Natuialist. 
Oct., 
Normally the bird seems to allow one within 5 or 6 yards. 
As to a bird on eggs, I avoided trying to go closer for fear 
of upsetting its regular course. If flushed off its nest it 
flits about the ground to lead one after it. The sitting 
bird in day time watches one with eyes nearly closed like 
slits, or with the shaded eye open. When one is close 
to the eggs at night and the parents off, my experience is 
that they generally keep dead silent ; and when young are 
out they are more likely to chuck at one when 50 or 100 
yards away than when closer. They may silently circle 
round you up to 200 yards away. 
For a few days after hatching out, the male replaces the 
female on the nest, when he has called her off, as described 
above. My nestling had first a dull grey down with a 
brown spot at each wing and at tail. On the 5th day it was 
mostly dark brown with little of the down left, on the 8th 
no down left. It had not moved its position in the 
sHghtest up to the 8th day, on the loth it had turned, 
on the 12th it was well feathered and had a tail, and I 
found it three yards from the nest. 
This was the start of a regular practice to make a short 
flight of a yard or two after the parents left it at dusk. 
But I always found it back at the original site next day. 
On the 14th it could hide ; on the i6th it made two flights 
of 20 yards when disturbed by me ; on the i8th it was still 
back at the original site, and on the 21st it was only a yard 
away ; on the 26th I could not find it. In my other case 
the birds long hankered after the nest neighbourhood by 
night and day. I flushed a bird on August 15th on that 
old nest site itself and after two more flushes it returned to 
the same spot. 
The site of a nest is well marked, as above described 
for roost, by similar excrement, only that as the young 
shift their ground the marks extend. Thus in my second 
case their shifting 10 yards along the dry edge of the drain 
was clearly marked. A number of J-inch quartz pebbles 
are also brought by the bird. 
When handling the half-grown young I noticed that 
no matter how quickly I turned the body, the fiat head 
kept dead level, as if quite unconnected with the body, 
even to almost a complete turn. 
Enniskillen. 
