258 
POPULAE HISTOHY OF BIEDS. 
coast ? How often, in visiting a sedgy pool surrounded with 
marshes, have we been saluted, but in no friendly wise, by 
the shrill clamour of the long-billed and sharp-winged birds, 
which had placed their nests on tufts too remote to be 
reached ! Again, on the long range of heathery hills, that 
we had traversed for many a weary mile, we have come, 
very unexpectedly to us, and with no welcome from its oc- 
cupant, upon the nest of the lonely curlew, which fluttered 
from among our feet in silence and terror, until, reaching a 
' safe distance, she began to entice us away from her treasure, 
by displaying a broken wing and shattered leg, — taught, in 
fact, by instinct, to act a palpable untruth. Many pleasant 
sights have we seen on these solitary rambles : — here the 
four spotted eggs of the dunlin, so like in colour to the sur- 
rounding ground, that you wonder how the eye has dis- 
tinguished them; here the timid young of the same bird, 
squatted among the short heath ; there a flock of godwits 
thrusting their bills into the mud ; and again, the gliding 
and low flight of the beautiful white-breasted tatler, as, 
skimming by the margin of the quiet lake, it emits its shrill 
and reiterated cries"^/^ This graphic passage is equally appli- 
cable to birds of the same family, inhabiting the most dis- 
* Histor ^British Birds, vol.iv. p. 161. 
