buted to a restlessness of disposition, which is even manifested when the bird
ent does a flock present the same appearance. It is now a round
ball, next instant shoots out like a sky-rocket, appears in single file, and, after assuming every imaginable
the whole being done with equal rapidity and grace, whether it
Its varied action on the ground is very pleasing, and

Redshank should rather be attri
is on the wing; for not more than a mom

form, perhaps rolls itself into a ball again,

rises high into the air or sweeps the surface of the sea.

the nodding of the head is often quite grotesque 5 indeed, at Roundstone or Coe where the bird is
f« Shake,’ on account of this habit.

numerous, it is commonly known by the name o
« Every month in the year the Redshank may be seen about our shores, though in the breeding-season not

e met with for a hundred at other times. Little flocks, as well as single birds and pairs,

more than ove will b
I saw flocks of them on the 20th and 21st of June 1832, about

occur on the coast in the height of summer.

some of the low rocky islets in Strangford Lough ; and our
y find their nests, containing three or four eggs each, on the gravelly

s they breed in the Bog of Allen, and near Mountainstown, in the

boatman stated that the Redshanks breed on some

of the islands every year, and that the
or shingly beach. Among inland localitie
county of Meath, as numbers annually do in moory swamps about Lough Conn and on the banks of the river
Mayo, in the county of that name.

«Naturalists, treating of this species
ing the shore are bred in the country.
ed, without, so far as I have observed, alluding to any migration northward of Great
Of the numbers, however, that are on the Irish coast the vast majority must have
been brought up in more northern latitudes.’ Tompson, Birds of Ireland, vol. 11. pp. 202 e¢ seq.

“ Grateful to the ear as the melody of the Song-Thrush when heard from the branches of the yet leafless
‘or the first whistle of the Stone Curlew and the Ringed Plover in their desolate

as a British bird, seem to consider that all the Redshanks frequent-
They describe it as on the coast in autumn and winter, and retiring

in‘and to bre
Britain for that purpose.

trees,” says Mr. Stevenson,
haunts on the warrens and ‘ breck’ lands, is the scream of the Redshank in the early spring, just returned to
‘ts summer baunts amidst the broads and marshes. In such localities, in very mild seasons, they may be
heard as early as the middle of February, but are more generally seen in pairs about the beginning of March,
when their nervous actions and swift jerking flight, added to their incessant and clamorous cries, enliven the
dreariest waste of marshy ground. It 1s noticeable also that, in the breeding-season, the male Redshank has
a ‘song’ of its own, quite as much as the Ringed Plover or the Common Snipe. More than once too, in the
early spring, have I seen the male bird, as Mr. Lubbock describes it, ‘ pirouetting ’ on a gatepost, now run-
ning quickly along the top rail, calling loudly to its mate, now bowing and fluttering like an amorous pigeon,
and less mindful of danger than at any other time. The first eggs are usually laid by the middle of April,
and are so artfully concealed that, unless their construction is known, many might pass unnoticed in a very
small space. A hollow is formed in the centre of a tuft of grass, part of which, trodden down, forms the
only lining, whilst the remainder, arching over as it were at the top, effectually conceals the eggs from view 5
and as the bird enters and leaves it from the side, and the grasses are either drawn or fall naturally over the
openings, the little runs thus made in the surrounding herbage are the only guides to its whereabouts. I
have examined several of these singular evidences of instinctive wisdom, and have always found four to be the
full complement of eggs, laid in a slight hollow, with their small ends inwards.

“ During incubation, and more especially when the young are hatched, the parent birds become even more
difficult of approach, and leaving their nests, like Lapwings, on the first alarm, fly screaming round the
intruder, their anxiety being evinced by strange aérial evolutions.”

For some very interesting details respecting the actions of the birds under these circumstances I must
refer my readers to Mr. Stevenson’s valuable ‘ Birds of Norfolk,’ vol. ii., from which the above extract
was taken.

Mr. W. Vincent Legge, in bis ‘ Oological Notes from South-east Essex,’ remarks that the eggs of the
Redshank appear to ‘ vary much in character.” They are mostly of an ochre-yellow or greenish yellow
ground, with bluish grey spots, and then blotched all over, especially at the larger end, with sepia. One
clutch had the ground greenish white, with minute specks of brown over the whole surface, and large
planes and clouds of sepia round the larger end; these were much pointed, and the shells very thin.

The sammer plumage of the Redshank differs very considerably from that of winter. At the former
season the body is strongly spotted and marked with black, while at the latter the upper surface is of a nearly
uniform tint, and the under surface is much whiter. During flight a W-shaped mark produced by the white
aps of the primaries and secondaries shows very conspicuously.

The Plate represents a male and a female in summer plumage, and a young bird of the first autumn, all
of the natural size.