[Illustration: USEFUL CHIEFLY. THE GREEN SANDPIPER.] The eggs of the Sandpiper are rarely found with us, being laid in deserted nests of Crows, Woodpigeons, Blackbirds, Jays or Thrushes, or even old squirrel dreys; although its haunts are about the peaty swamps, hill streams and ponds. Its nesting habits differ from the others of its congeners. Its cousin, the Common Sandpiper (_Totanus hypoleucus_), is also a lively creature, that goes by the name of Fidler Willy-wicket, Dicky-dy-dee, and Water-junket. Fish is sure to be in the stream about which trips the Fiddler. Its note on rising to take flight is “_Wheet! wheet!_” and its alarm cry a shary “_Giff! giff!_” At Madely, in Staffordshire, a pair of these Sandpipers hatched out their young in a vicarage garden a few summers ago, the fact being recorded by the vicar, the Rev. T. W. Daltry. In June you may come on a hen Sandpiper, with her young, beside some moorland stream. The little ones are precocious in their ways, and run about nimbly as soon as hatched out. The young of the Green Sandpiper are not so easy to observe. The Green Sandpiper is a little over nine inches in length. Upper parts olive brown tinged with metallic green, speckled and mottled, the lower parts white, so that when flying it looks like a black and white bird; the middle tail feathers having broad black bars, towards the end, the two outside feathers almost white. Feet greenish. The bird lays its eggs in old Squirrels’ dreys, or the nests of Mistle-and Song-Thrushes, Blackbirds, Jays, and Woodpigeons; sometimes even on the ground, or on mossy stumps, and spines heaped upon fir branches, as high up as thirty-five feet but always near to pools. The eggs are light greenish-grey, with small purplish brown spots, generally four in number. [Illustration: HARMFUL. THE NIGHT HERON.] THE NIGHT HERON. (_Nycticorax gríseus._) The Night Heron nests with large numbers of its congeners in inaccessible spots in the marshes where marshy tracts and broom bush are close together. In such places will be found on each tree as many nests as there is room for. The nest itself is carelessly built of a few branches laid one on another, with a final layer of dry rush and sedge leaves. It contains four or five pale green-blue eggs.