DOTTEREL. 251 



sionally toy with each other, at the same time uttering a few 

 low notes, which had some resemblance to those of the 

 Common Linnet. In short, they appeared to be so very in- 

 different with regard to our presence, that at last my assistant 

 could not avoid exclaiming, 'What stupid birds these are!' 

 The female that had young, nevertheless, evinced consider- 

 able anxiety for their safety, whenever we came near the 

 place where they were concealed, and as long as we remained 

 in the vicinity constantly flew to and fro above us, uttering 

 her note of alarm. 



" As soon as the young birds were fully feathered, two 

 were killed for the purpose of examining their plumage in 

 this state ; and we found that after they hp,d been fired at 

 once or twice, they became more wary, and eventually we 

 had some little difficulty in approaching sufficiently near 

 to efifect our purpose. The moult appears to commence 

 somewhat early in old birds ; a male that was killed on 

 the 25th of July was completely covered with pen-feathers, 

 and the belly, from incubation, almost entirely bare. The 

 stomachs I dissected were all filled with the elytra, and 

 remains of small coleopterous insects, which, in all proba- 

 bility, constitute their principal food during the breeding 

 season.* 



" These birds, I understand, are getting every year more 

 and more scarce in the neighbourhood of the lakes ; and 

 from the number that are annually killed by the anglers 

 at Keswick and the vicinity, — their feathers having long 

 been held in high estimation for dressing artificial flies, — it 

 is extremely probable that in a few years they will become 

 so exceedingly rare, that specimens will be procured with 

 considerable difficulty." — (Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., 

 ii. pp. 300-303.) 



The maximum number of eggs appears to be three : at 

 least four must be of rare occurrence, and in records fur- 

 nished to the Editor extending from 1849 to 1874 the former 



* In the stomach of a bird shot in Lincolnshire on 5th May, Mr. Harting 

 found remains of coleoptera, four wireworms, wings of diptera, larva; of lepi- 

 doptera (Polyodon), and small particles of grit ; and another killed on 7th May, 

 in Cambridgeshire, contained sixty-three wireworms and two beetles. 



