THE GREEN-SHANK. 
279 
The nest itself is a mere hollow in the ground, lined with a few 
dry stalks and blades of grass. Mr. Robert Read writes to 
me;— “This species is e.xceedingly wary, and although very 
demonstrative when an intruder is in the vicinity of its nest, it 
is very careful not to betray the whereabouts of the latter. In 
June, 1894, on the edge of a reed-covered lake or swamp, I 
watched a pair unsuccessfully for more than an hour. 1 hey flew 
around, uttering the most noisy cries of alarm, and kept on 
settling on the tops of the young Scotch fir-trees which grew 
here and there amongst the willow-scrub, perching within a 
dozen yards of me. It was very curious to observe these 
birds, apparently so ill-adapted for perching, clinging some- 
times to the side of, and sometimes to the extreme lip of the 
topmost shoot or ‘ leader ’ of the tree. So bold were they that 
I was able to photograph them as they sat on the summits of 
the trees.” 
jigg-. — Four in number, and very handsome. The ground- 
colour varies from olive-grey or olive-brown to light clay- 
colour or stone-grey, and the markings are reddish or chestnut, 
or even blackish, when they form blotches. Although the 
larger spots are congregated near the thicker end of the egg, in 
some cases they are distributed fairly evenly over the whole 
c<^g, and the purplish-grey underlying markings are decidedly 
dtstinct. In other examples, how'ever, only the larger end of 
the e"'°’ shows blotches and spots, and the greater part of it has 
only scanty spots distributed over its otherwise uniform surface. 
Axis, i-4-i'55 inch.; diam., ro-ros. 
THE GREEN-SIIANK. GENUS GLOTTIS 
Glottis, Koch, Syst. Eaicr. Zool. p. 305 (1S16). 
Type, G. nebular ius (Gunn.). 
Our Green-shank is the only representative of this Old- 
World genus, and is distinguished from the other British 
members of the Sub-family by having an upturned bill, 
in which respect it resembles the Terek Tattler {Terekia 
dnerea) and Haughton’s Tattler {Pseudoglottis guttifer). 
The outer toe is united to the middle one by a basal mem- 
