The Golden Plover 255 



casions they frequently utter their singular cry — the note 

 so often referred to in Sir Walter Scott's poems — which, 

 like the nightingale's song, is considered simply plaintive 

 or painfully woe-begone, according to the natural tempera- 

 ment or occasional mood of the hearer. 



This bird builds no nest ; a natural depression in the 

 ground, unprotected by bush, heather, or rock, serves its 

 purpose, and here the female lays four eggs, much pointed 

 at one end, and arranges them in accordance with this. 

 At the approach of autumn, no matter where their 

 summer may have been passed, plovers migrate south- 

 wards in large flights, those from Scotland to the southern 

 counties of England, where they frequent wide moist 

 pastures, heaths, and re-claimed marsh-land. 



From the northern parts of the Continent of Europe 

 they take their departure in October, either to the 

 European shores of the Mediterranean or to the plains of 

 Northern Africa. In these migrations they are not un- 

 frequently joined by starlings. 



They travel in close array, forming large flocks much 

 wider than deep, moving their sharp wings rapidly, and 

 making a whizzing sound which may be heard a long way 

 off. Now and then, as if actuated by a single impulse, 

 they sweep towards the ground, suddenly alter the direc- 

 tion of their flight, then wheel upwards with the regularity 

 of a machine, and either alight or pursue their onward 

 course. This habit of skimming along the ground and 

 announcing their approach before hand is turned to good 

 purpose by the bird-catcher, who imitates their note, 

 attracts the whole flight to sweep down into his neigh- 

 bourhood, and captures them in his net, a hundred at a 

 time, or when they are within range, has no difficulty in 

 killing from twelve to twenty at a shot. Not unfre- 

 quently, too, when some members of a flock have been 

 killed or wounded, the remainder, before they remove 

 out of danger, wheel round and sweep just over the 

 heads of their ill-fated companions, as if for the purpose 

 of inquiring the reason why they have deserted the party, 

 or of alluring them to join it once more. 



This habit is not peculiar to plovers, but may be noticed 



