DOTTEREL. 79 
amounting to about a dozen birds, but rarely as many 
as twenty. In the same manner, on the great fields 
about Westacre, a few still rest for a time on their 
passage in spring—a small flock being seen by Mr. 
Anthony Hamond, jun., during the first week in 
May, 1867; but their small numbers, and less regular 
appearance, is remarked both by sportsmen and natu- 
ralists in that neighbourhood. From Feltwell Mr. 
Newcome gives a very similar account. He killed one 
out of a small “trip,” in May, 1867, and others were 
killed on Wangford warren, in Suffolk, during the same 
season; but he is inclined to think that since the 
drainage and cultivation of the “fens” these birds, on 
their arrival in May, prefer the newly sown bean and 
rye-lands to the warrens and sheep-walks, but this only 
on their vernal migration, as all attraction ceases with 
the growing crops. They are particularly partial to 
bare grass where sheep are feeding, but even in the 
most exposed localities will squat so close as to pass 
unnoticed till almost trodden upon, relying for safety 
rather on concealment than flight. The shooting of 
dotterel during their spring passage is a most unsports- 
manlike practice, and to its prevalence must be attributed, 
in a great measure, the growing scarcity of the species.* 
For the birds killed at that season having escaped all the 
‘various casualties to which they are liable during the 
* Some forty years ago (“ Mag. Nat. Hist.,” vol. ix., p. 525), Mr. 
Salmon attributed the falling off in their numbers, “ of late years,” 
to this cause, but at the same time it must be remembered that 
as long since as 1833 and 1834, the late Mr. Heysham, of Carlisle, 
who took so much pains to establish the fact of their breeding 
in the neighbourhood of the lakes, understood that they were 
yearly becoming more and more scarce about Keswick and its 
vicinity, owing to their destruction by anglers, their feathers being 
in much request for dressing artificial flies (Yarrell, 2nd ed., vol ii., 
p. 461.) 
