17G BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



Twelfth. Their southern migration commences in July, 

 and few, if any, of the birds actually bred on any given 

 moor remain thereon till the middle of August. On the 

 high "black ground," where they had bred, few are seen 

 in August (except sometimes in wet weather) — only a 

 ragged old bird or two with marbled breast, and some 

 late-hatched youngsters, still downy on the neck, which 

 pipe restlessly about and generally manage to get shot. 

 At a short interval after the departure of our native 

 plovers, commences that irregular but continuous stream 

 of plovers which have presumably come from the Scottish 

 moorlands and from Orkney and Shetland ; and which 

 stream continues until the end of September. There then 

 occurs a perceptible interval before the arrival of the great 

 flights of over-sea plovers, which come from Northern 

 Europe in October. 



These deductions have since been confirmed by the 

 experience of three seasons' shooting in Scotland — 

 two in Sutherland, one in the Outer Hebrides. No golden 

 plovers at all remained on any of those moors in 

 August, though numbers, we were assured, had bred 

 thereon. In North Uist there were plenty of plovers on 

 the shore and salt-marshes, but none on the heather. 



In Norway also, during several seasons' reindeer- 

 stalking on the high fjeld, I have only twice noticed 

 golden plovers remaining on their breeding-ground after 

 mid-August. Both instances occurred in 1897, on the 

 Dovre-fjeld. 



Snipes also come in the category of birds which are 

 migratory as species, but of which individuals may be 

 found here at all seasons. Many of those shot on the 

 Border moors in August are obviously of local breed, since 

 they are in all stages of adolescence, from the down 



