276 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
The Greenshank {'Totanus canescens) is a 
rather larger bird, and very much more uncommon. 
It occasionally breeds in parts of the Scottish 
Highlands, and is also seen sometimes in inland 
places, as well as along the coast, on its spring and 
autumn migrations. Its upper parts in the breed- 
ing season are chiefly mottled black and grey, 
instead of brown, as in the Redshank, and it may 
also be recognised by its bill being slightly 
curved up at the end. The nest is generally, but 
not always, placed in a marshy situation or near 
water, and the four eggs are about the size of the 
Plover's, but lighter in ground-colour, and spotted 
with grey as well as deep brown. 
CURLEW. 
(^Numenius arquatus.) 
Whaup. — The wary form and wild voice of the 
Curlew are known to everyone on the moorlands 
and mountains of the west and north during the 
breeding season, and there is no bird so typical of 
the life of these wide and airy solitudes. For the 
winter the Curlew retires to the sea-shore and the 
estuaries of rivers, and now and then he is to be 
seen in spring or autumn pausing in quieter inland 
places than he usually frequents, on his northward 
