NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 237 



The paper was illustrated by a beautiful series of the eggs 

 referred to, which were collected by Mr Cook in the proviuce 

 of Canterbury, N.Z., in 1872. 



III. — On the Nesting of the DottereU(Charadrius morinellus) in Scotland. 

 By Mr John A. Harvie-Brown. 



Some years ago my friend Captain H. W. Feilden and myself 

 obtained the kind permission of the lessee of a shooting, in a 

 certain wild district of Scotland, to obtain the eggs of the Dotterell 

 (Charadrius morinellus), which rare species was known to breed 

 upon a mountain on the property. The gamekeeper, however, 

 during three successive seasons, failed to obtain them for us, and 

 assured us that none had frequented their accustomed haunts 

 during these years ; further, that a young English gentleman, 

 who was shooting there, had killed in one day the two old birds 

 and the three young ; and that, since that time, none had been seen 

 upon the mountain, though, upon an adjoining property, two pairs 

 had bred undisturbed the year previous to our visit. 



It was, therefore, with but the very faintest expectations of 

 success that Captain Feilden and myself, accompanied by the 

 gamekeeper, started to ascend the mountain on the morning of 

 the 16th June of the present year (1873). Indeed, we already 

 consoled ourselves with the thought that we would, at all events, 

 see the ground which was known at one time to have been 

 occupied by this now rare British bird, and have a good walk and 

 a view from the top. We reached the top of the mountain, some 

 3000 feet above the sea, at nine o'clock A.M., and found a broad, 

 almost level, moss-covered plateau stretching before us to a 

 distance of about three-quarters of a mile. Scattered over this 

 level mossy ground were numberless small pieces of grey rock, 

 partially embedded in the yielding moss, and the moss itself rose 

 in ridges or hummocks, giving an irregular outUne to the surface, 

 or, as it were, forming the latter into innumerable miniature hills 

 and valleys. We at once saw how admirably suited to the habits 

 of the species we were in search of, this kind of ground was, and, 

 moreover, that we would have no little difficulty to contend with, 

 in the event of our having to watch the bird to the nest, as the 

 upper plumage of the Dotterell harmonizes in color with the 

 yellowish-brown carpeting of moss. First, however, we had to 

 find the birds; and, accordingly, with this object in view, we 



