MAY ON THE MOORS 77 



The Dunlin is the next of the moorland birds whose 

 summer-history I shall endeavour to portray. He is not 

 an easy study. Arriving- on the higher fells in April, 

 the dunlins are scattered so widely in sporadic pairs, 

 or groups of pairs, that one may search for a week 

 without seeing a sign of their presence. Year after year 

 they return to the identical moss or flowe- — it is perhaps 

 a mile in circuit, and that great, flat, featureless area is 

 tenanted by but a single pair of dunlins. Very likely 

 there is not another haunt within 10 miles. Then, 

 when at last you have succeeded in locating them, they 

 are most perplexing birds to understand. They are so 

 ridiculously tame, running around almost within arm's 

 length, "purring" the while in their peculiar fashion, 

 that they induce you to believe their nest must be close 

 at hand. Yet, after lying prone in that oozy bog for half 

 an hour, up goes the dunlin with a little wild pipe and 

 flies out of sight. True, they are beautiful to watch, 

 graceful in the extreme ; but such conduct exasperates. 

 I have seen them, year after year, in spots where they 

 certainly do not breed, perform all their presumptively 

 breeding antics, as though gratuitously to deceive. 



When at length the nest is found, it will be situated on 

 a tiny hummock — one of thousands, all similar — in some 

 broad flowe, each hummock islanded by a labyrinth of 

 black oozy peat-channels. The nest itself is not con- 

 cealed — a mere depression, artlessly lined — among the low 

 bents, stunted heather, and cotton-grass that clothe the 

 hummock. The dunlin herself, knowing that her treasures 

 have been discovered, still continues crooning and 

 "purring" close by, and even pretends to be feeding, or 

 preening her upper-coverts. Later on, however, when the 

 eggs are incubated, she flutters off with a fine display of 



