DOTTEREL. 31 



Oriental Region or in South-east Siberia; and its alleged occurrence in 

 Japan (Cassin, Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. Pliilad. 1858, p. 195) is probably based 

 on a case o£ mistaken identity. The Dotterel has no very near ally. 



Of all the Plovers, the Dotterel is my favourite. I first made its 

 acquaintance whilst crossing the Dovrefjeld with my friend Collett, and 

 remarked its tameness as it was feeding in small parties on the patches 

 of cultivated land behind the farmhouse where we stopped to dine. 

 Afterguards I occasionally met with it on the rocky fells near the North 

 Cape, where it was evidently breeding amongst the lichens and creeping 

 birches above the limit of forest-growth. Further east I watched a few 

 pairs on the grassy hill that rises behind the deserted village of Stana- 

 vialachta on the shores of the lagoons of the Petchora, and still further 

 to the east I shot the adult and nearly fledged young on the tundras of 

 Siberia, in lat. 71°, in the valley of the Yenesay. Elwes and I observed it 

 on migration in Jutland ; and everywhere it was the same charming little 

 bird, allowing itself to be watched without showing any alarm. It has the 

 reputation of being a very foolish bird, permitting itself to be approached 

 very closely, and to be shot or driven into a net with very little trouble. 

 It is even said that its name is derived from its proverbial foolishness, a 

 ''foolish dull person ■"' being called a dotterel even before Willughby's 

 time. It is more probable that the bird was so called before the name 

 was transferred to the " foolish person.^-" A Dotterel must not be regarded 

 as a Plover in its dotage, but rather as a little bird which cries dut or dote, 

 low, plaintive, and somewhat prolonged, whence its provincial name in 

 some parts of Germany of " Dutschen.'-' The Dotterel has another note, 

 which may be represented by the syllable drr, and sometimes the two 

 notes follow each other, drr-dut. In the pairing- season it has a trill 

 or song. 



The Dotterel is a late bird of passage, as might naturally be expected 

 from a species breeding only above or beyond the limits of forest-growth 

 and seldom appears in this country before the end of April or the beginning 

 of May. In spring it appears to migrate with great raj^idity, probably 

 passing from North Africa to North Europe in a single night, as scarcely 

 any records of its vernal migrations are to be found from Central or Southern 

 Europe. In autumn, however, it progresses much more leisurely ; it crosses 

 the Mediterranean at Malta during October and November, passing through 

 Central Germany about a month earlier. 



The Dotterel is essentially a bird of the fallows, and where there is no 

 cultivated land it picks out the dry, bare places on which to feed. It 

 avoids the swamps, and is seldom or never seen on the banks of rivers or 

 lakes. The sea-shore has no attractions for the Dotterel, nor does it seem 

 to care for pasture ; but it loves to trip amongst clods of earth, and seeks 

 its food on the bare mountain- sides. There it is very tame, and is much 



