run from the nest, or rather from
the eggs, for, as a rule, nest there is none, the eggs being only placed
on the sand, with which they get half buried, when they may easily be
mistaken for a small bit of speckled granite and passed by. In the
summer of 1866, a friend and myself had a long search for the eggs of a
pair we saw and were certain had eggs, as they practised all the usual
devices to decoy us from them, till my friend, actually thinking one of
the birds to be badly wounded, set his dog at it; after this all chance
was over: this was in a small sandy bay, called Port Soif, near the
Grand Rocques Barracks. I mention this as I am certain these birds had
eggs or young somewhere close to us, and this was the farthest point
towards Vazon Bay from the Vale I found them breeding. The sandy shores
of Grand Havre and L'Ancresse Bay seemed to be their head
breeding-quarters in Guernsey. Though I only found one set of eggs in
Grand Havre, I am sure there were three or four pairs of birds breeding
there; the two eggs I found were lying with their thick ends just
touching each other and half buried in sand; there was no nest whatever,
not even the sand hollowed out; they were in quite a bare place, just,
and only just, above the high-water line of seaweed. I should not have
found these if it had not been for the tracks of the birds immediately
round them. In L'Ancresse Bay I was not equally fortunate, but there
were quite as many pairs of birds breeding there. In Herm the
shell-beach seems to be their head breeding-quarters, and there Mr.
Howard Saunders, Colonel l'Estrange and myself found several sets of
eggs, generally three in number, but in one or two instances four: these
were probably hard-sat; in one instance, with four eggs, the eggs were
nearly upright in the sand, the small end being buried, and the thick
end just showing above the sand. In no instance in which I saw the eggs
was there the slightest attempt at a nest; but Colonel l'Estrange told
me that in one instance, in which he had found some eggs a day or two
before I got to Guernsey, quite the end of May, he found there was a
slight attempt at a nest, a few bents of the rough herbage which grew in
the sand just above high-water mark having been collected and the nest
lined with them. I have not found any eggs in Alderney, but I have no
doubt they breed in some of the sandy bays to the north of the Island
occasionally, if not always, as I have seen them there