THE GOLDEN PLOVER 209 



3000 feet, where even under the most favourable conditions 

 May must be well advanced before the Plover migrants 

 commence to lay. But they are lucky if they hatch off 

 their first brood — if they escape the glance of the Raven 

 and the Carrion Crow, and if the hill fox spares them. 

 So it is that second nests are by no means uncommon 

 on the hill. 



On the hill-top the ground stretches away for miles 

 in a great plateau, with many peat hags and a few lochans 

 catching the sun as they lie there. Masses of cloudberry 

 carpet the ground, and the club moss {Lycopodium 

 selago) grows more profusely than I have ever seen it else- 

 where. 



One Golden Plover we came across had young of a 

 tender age, and displayed more anxiety on their behalf 

 than I have ever known of the Fcadag tribe. At first 

 she ran around uttering her plaintive pipe, and on my 

 essaying an imitation of the cry of a chick in distress she 

 crouched flat on the ground, endeavouring to persuade 

 me that she was brooding her young, and practising a 

 deception which I became so familiar with while studying 

 the Dotterel at her nesting site. Presently, tiring of this 

 ruse, she ran do\vn the hill with tail outspread, and waving 

 one wing in the air. She certainly feigned a broken wing 

 with exceptional skill, the way in which she held it high 

 and waved it feebly being masterly to a degree. 



Later on, finding that I remained unresponsive despite 

 her finished acting, the Plover ran back towards me. At 

 times she paused, then gradually fluffed on the feathers 

 before giving them a quick shake, in true Dotterel fashion. 

 Like the Dotterel, too, she fed on any insect her sharp eye 

 detected, despite her anxiety. When I rose up and started 

 out for another part of the hill, the Feadag evidently 

 imagined that my move was the result of her manoeuvring, 

 and showed great gratification, flying and running on 



o 



