222 THE GOLDEN PLOVER 



they arose. On the setting in of hard weather, this bird 

 leaves the inland districts and frequents the neighbourhood 

 of the sea-coast, where it generally remains more or less 

 until spring, when it returns to the moors to breed, and may 

 again be heard 



Wild-whistling o'er the hill. 



Burns. 



Its nest is generally placed in a slight hollow of the ground 

 amongst heather, and is lined with a little dry grass. The 

 eggs, which are three or four in number, are of a yellowish- 

 brown colour, spotted and blotched with brownish-black.^ 



The food of this species, when inland, consists of worms, 

 slugs, and insects ; and on the sea-coast of small molluscs of 

 various kinds. 



The Golden Plover has long been considered a great 

 delicacy for the table, and we find in Dunbar's Dirige to 

 the King hydand our lang in Stirling, that His Majesty is 

 invited to return to Edinburgh — 



To eat cran, pertrick, swan, and pliver, 

 And every fisch that swyms in river, 

 To drink with us the new fresch wyne 

 That grew upon the river Ryne, 

 Fresch fragrant Clarits out of France, 

 Of Anglers and of Orliance.^ 



The price of this bird was fixed by the Scottish Parliament 

 in the reign of Queen Mary (1551) at "four pennies." 



The word Plover is derived from the French Pluvier,^ 

 a name which Eolland says this bird bears, because it 

 arrives in tiocks in the rainy season of the year.^ In some 

 parts of Berwickshire its arrival in autumn is considered by 



1 Wliile walking over Harelaw Moor, near Westruther, on the 24th of April 

 1885, I found a nest of the Golden Plover with four eggs, whicli were neatly placed 

 iu it with their small ends together, thus enabling tlie bird to cover them con- 

 veniently. 



a Sibbald, Chron. Scot. Poet., vol. i. p. 237. 



3 Latin pluvialis, rainy. 



■* Faune Populaire de la France, tome ii., "Les Oiseaux Sauvages," p. 346. 



