THE DOTTEREL 



CHARADRIUS MORINELLUS 



Pluvier guionard {French) ; ZubkglupOi {Russian) ; 

 DijTCHEN {German, local). 



Long summer days spent on the high tops in the mist- 

 country pass before the mind as I sit down to endeavour 

 to give some account of a bird which, by its trustfuhiess 

 and engaging habits, gives many a cheerful hour to the 

 ornithologist who studies it at its nesting sites on the 

 Roof of Scotland. 



In earlier times the delightfully confiding character 

 of the Dotterel met with but scant appreciation, and the 

 bird was set down as a brainless individual deserving of 

 little but ridicule. The very name. Dotterel, is a deriva- 

 tive from the verb to " dote," while its scientific cognomen 

 is said to have its origin in morus — a fool. Then to the hill- 

 man the bird is known as A71 t-amadan mointeach, a term 

 signifying the " stupid fellow of the peat-mosses." 



This confidence of the Dotterel has had a regrettable 

 effect on the numbers of the bird in this country. In 

 former times it was, I believe, found nesting on the 

 Mendip Hills, and was also commonly seen on the Chilton 

 ridges in Berkshire and the chalk hills of Bedford, Hert- 

 ford, and Cambridge. Sir John Crewe wrote in 1865 that 

 he had often heard from his gamekeepers that it was quite 

 easy, fifteen or twenty years before that date, to shoot 

 Dotterel when they had young on the hills lying on the 

 borders of Derby and Stafford. Even at the present time 



the birds make a halt at their old haunts during their 



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