212 CHARADRIIDAL 
on a mud-flat in Donegal Bay (H. R. Nichols, ‘ Irish 
Naturalist,’ 1906, p. 45). 
Food.—The food consists of various insects, especially 
beetles and caterpillars; worms, slugs, and snails, are also 
eaten. 
Voice.—The note is low and rather plaintive. 
Nest.—In the nesting-season the Dotterel resorts to 
mountains often of considerable altitude, breeding on the 
slopes not far from the summits. 
The eggs, three in number, deposited in a depression 
in moss or grass-covered soil, are cold buff, varying in 
shade to light olive, and blotched with brownish-black. 
Incubation begins about the second week in June. 
In the British Isles the Dotterel breeds in small 
numbers on the hills of Cumberland (lake district), while 
northward it may be found nesting on the Grampians (at 
an elevation of 3,000 feet), and on other mountain-ranges 
in Northern Scotland. 
Geographical distribution.—Abroad this bird breeds in 
Scandinavia, North Russia, and eastward right across 
Siberia; also on some of the islands within the Arctic 
Circle. Over Temperate and Southern Europe it is mainly 
a& passing spring and autumn migrant. Its winter range 
extends to North Africa and Western Asia. 
DESCRIPTIYE CHARACTERS. 
PLUMAGE. Adult male nuptial.—Top of head,! dark 
brownish-black ; a curved white stripe extends over the eye 
backwards to the hind-neck, joining there with the similar 
stripe of the other side; front of head, cheeks, chin, and 
throat, nearly white, with a little brown speckling in front 
of the eye; feathers of the back and wings, brownish, with 
hghter margins; inner secondaries, margined with red; 
primaries, brown; tail, brown, edged with white, except 
the central pair of feathers; front of neck and upper breast, 
ereyish-brown, the lower feathers being edged with black 
and lmited by a white crescent; lower breast, bright 
reddish-brown ; flanks, similar in colour; abdomen, black ; 
under tail-coverts, white; axillaries, greyish. 
' In the shape of its head the Dotterel closely resembles the true 
Plovers. Its forehead is round and prominent, its beak short and 
straight and its eyes large and bright. 
