CHARADRID. 329 
For as you creep or cower, or lie or stoop or go, 
So marking you with care, the apish bird doth do, 
And acting everything, doth never mark the net, 
Till he be in the snare which men for him have set.” 
The Dotterel is said to deposit its eggs on the 
ground without any nest, merely a hole in some dry 
ground under cover of some vegetation, and gene- 
rally near a moderately-sized stone or rock: the 
tops of high hills or mountains are the favourite 
breeding localities: on many of the mountains in 
the Lake District they appear at one time to have 
been numerous during the breeding-season, and 
Yarrell gives a list of these mountains, but they 
must now be getting scarce even there, for Mr. Cor- 
deaux, in some interesting notes on the Ornithology 
of the English Lakes,* speaking of the Dotterel, 
says, “ All endeavours to find these birds have been 
unavailing. J have walked upwards of one hundred 
miles over these hills, the greater portion of this 
distance being very likely Dotterel ground, without 
either seeing or hearing any.” I have myself also 
walked over most of the mountains mentioned by 
Yarrell as favourite breeding-grounds with the same 
result as Mr. Cordeaux. I may add that I have 
been equally unfortunate on the Mendips. 
The food of the Dotterel is said to be chiefly 
insects and their larve, worms, beetles, small 
* ‘ Zoologist’ for 1867 (Second Series, p. 870). 
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