THE DUNLINS. 
227 
which is so generally spread over the recently thawed land, 
that the Broad-billed Sandpiper has its eggs, and this is just 
before midsummer, about the third week in June. Many 
empty nests are found for one which is occupied, and I 
suppose them to be of former years, for the moss in which 
they are usually worked long retains any mark made in it, 
being hard frozen for more than half the year ; they are neatly- 
rounded hollows, and have a few bits of dried grass at the 
bottom. The bird sometimes flies, and sometimes runs, off 
her eggs ; and if she has sat for a day or two, she will come 
back even while men are standing round.” 
Eggs. — Four in number, and very dark in appearance, the 
ground-colour apjacaring pinkish-brown, very thickly mottled 
and spotted with dark chocolate-brown, generally almost hiding 
the ground-colour itself. In a pale type of egg the ground- 
colour is stone-grey or olive-clay colour, the spotting being 
very minute, and sometimes accompanied by a cluster of 
blotches at the larger end of the egg. The underlying spots, 
which are often prominent, are of a violet-grey. Axis, i'2-i-4 
inch; di.am., o-g-o'95. 
the dunlins, genus pelidna. 
Felidna, Cuvier, Regne. Anim. i. p. 490 (1817). 
Type, P. alpina (Linn.). 
The Dunlins have the culmen longer than the tarsus, hut 
they may be distinguished from the Snipes and Wood-cocks by 
the position of the eye, which is placed much more forward in 
the head and does not approach the level of the opening of the 
ear. The bill is slender and straight at the tip, and is not 
curved downwards ; there is a slight tendency to broadening at 
the end so that the genus Pelidna holds an intermediate posi- 
tion between Limicola and Ancylochilus. The Dunlins, more- 
over, differ from the genus Tringa in having the middle tail- 
feathers prolonged and sharpened at the ends ; the inner 
secondaries also are very long, and so nearly equal to the 
primaries in length, that the difference between these two sets 
of quills is less than the length of the tarsus. 
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