4 The Oologists' Record, March 1, 1923. 



showed a good deal of polish, and were, I imagine, considerably 

 incubated. 



From this point we bore away to the north-east, the ground 

 rising very gradually to its greatest altitude — 3087 feet. 



On the fiat directly below the Cairn — a ver}^ perfect piece of 

 ground — -we came across a little band of five Dotterels, all in 

 remarkably bright and beautiful plumage and extremely tame. 

 We could make nothing of these birds, but as we approached the 

 Cairn itself, T saw a solitary bird start to run nearly 80 yards in 

 front of us. I at first was sure it was a Golden Plover, and was 

 only barely in time to pick it up with my glasses before it disappeared 

 over the hill — ^when I saw that it was a Dotterel. I knew instinc- 

 tively that she had left a nest, and walking straight to the spot at 

 which I had first seen her, I put my stick down and found the eggs 

 in a moment. We never saw this Dotterel again, although we were 

 in the area for nearly an hour ! The ground here was not nearly 

 so level-surfaced, and the nest was on one of many hundreds of 

 tussocks all of which were precisely alike. These tussocks were 

 soft and covered with somewhat faded-looking grayish moss, and 

 the nest was deeper than those already described, although the 

 eggs were again fairly easy to see from a distance : they were 

 incubated over a week. 



Our next experience with the Dotterel was about two o'clock 

 in the afternoon of the same day. We were following the plateau 

 in a southerly direction when I caught sight of a bird disappearing 

 amongst some tussocks of rather long, dead grass about 100 yards 

 in front of me. There was a beautiful bit of gray, mossy ground 

 in between, with some of the patches of white stones which are so 

 familiar a feature of these hilltops, and, although I was very far 

 from being certain that the bird I had seen was a Dotterel, I 

 determined to search this likely area, which was reasonably limited 

 in extent. After nearly an hour's methodical and patient work, 

 however, we abandoned the search reluctantly, concluding that the 

 disappearing bird — of which, by the way, we saw neither sign nor 

 tidings, was either a Golden Plover or a Dunlin. 1 turned up a 

 white stone as a comparatively inconspicuous landmark, and 

 slightly enlarged the hole where I had first put down my stick, 

 and we proceeded on our way. 



It was nearly six o'clock when we turned homewards — practically 

 back on our own footmarks, and again I saw a bird disappear 



