SCOLOPACIDJE. 
328 
flies round with an occasional tjeuty, or stands upon 
the top of a neighbouring tree, showing the full length 
of its slender legs, neck, and bill. But it is not till it 
has young that all its powers of eloquence are fully 
brought into play: it then comes far to meet any in¬ 
truder, floating over him with a clear cry that echoes 
through the forest, or that is heard over a great extent 
of marsh; or it stands very near one, bowing its head, 
and opening its beak quite wide in the energy of its 
gesticulation. The eggs, four in number, are of a rich 
green ground-colour when fresh, or sometimes of a bright 
brown. This year they were laid hereabouts at the 
end of May. The young are probably carried into 
marshy land as soon as they are hatched, for there 
they are whilst they are still very small. I am told 
that dry mounds rising out of swamps are sometimes 
chosen as breeding places. The nests I have described 
were found quite by good luck — stumbled upon in 
walking through the forest, where the bird is scattered, 
usually at rather wide intervals. One may see two or 
three pairs in the course of a long day's walk. It is 
so wary that I have never succeeded in watching it 
to its nest." 
Mr. Wolley expresses as much surprise at meeting with 
the nests and eggs of this bird high and dry, as I felt 
when in Shetland I was taken to see nests of the snipe 
upon a steep hill-side several hundred feet above the 
marshy ground, and could not fully believe it until I had 
caught the bird upon the eggs. 
The beautiful varieties of the eggs which I have figured 
are from the collection of Mr. Wolley, taken by himself 
in Lapland ; they vary in their ground-colour as much as 
the eggs of the terns do; in the elegance of their form they 
are truly typical of the eggs of the Scolopacidce. 
