38o TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



I soon heard the cry of the birds and saw them fly- 

 round and ahght on the tops of the hummocks. Pre- 

 sently one of them ran towards me and then again stood 

 on a hummock, uttering at intervals its note, which I 

 write as a whistle — peelweee — the first syllable short and 

 low, the second drawn-out and louder — shriller than a 

 Golden Plover's. I afterwards heard a pair of the birds 

 uttering the same double note while flying overhead in 

 circles. The birds' behaviour near the nest was exactly 

 similar to that of a Golden Plover, sitting erect on the 

 higher hummocks, whistling at intervals, running rapidly 

 across the hollows, or flying in a circle round the nest, not, 

 like that of a Dotterel, sneaking round the hummocks, 

 seldom perching on the tops, and if obliged to go on 

 higher ground, again seeking the hollows as quickly as 

 possible ; not, like the Dotterel, running with head low 

 down, except when leaving the nest, nor like the Dotterel 

 keeping an unbroken silence. (If the Dotterel be a little 

 fool in its mimicry, it is no fool at all at its nest.) I 

 missed both barrels at the bird, first, however, fully 

 identifying him through my glass. I misjudged the 

 distance, my eyes being almost level with the tops of the 

 hummocks. But he soon came again, and after a stalk 

 I shot him — the male. The nest and all the others we 

 examined to-day were deepish hollows lined with a 

 mixture of small broken twigs, dry dwarf birch, and 

 dwarf rhododendron-leaves, and broken pieces of reindeer 

 moss. They were all placed on the drier ridges, but not 

 on the tops of the hummocks. The eggs of all four nests 

 have the same, or nearly the same, greenish ground 

 colour, and the type does not appear to be much departed 

 from in the marking and coloration, as is the case with 

 eggs of the Golden Plover. We took a Lapland Bunt- 

 ing's nest, lined with feathers, and then hastened to meet 

 Gavriel, who had been searching afar off, and who cried. 



