4 CHARADEIID^. 



mist which prevailed. Both birds were much excited ; they shammed lameness, 

 sometimes springing a few feet into the air, and fluttering down again, as well 

 as going through a performance similar to above described. They doubtless had 

 young, and must have led them away shortly afterwards, for on two subsequent 

 occasions I could find no trace of either old or young. I looked over much 

 suitable ground in other directions, including spots which were formerly favourite 

 haunts, but could see nothing more of this most interesting species." 



By the kindness of Mr. Salter, I am enabled to figure the two eggs above 

 referred to (Figures 4 & 5j. He further informs me that it was the male bird 

 which sat on the eggs and shammed lameness, the female hardly ever coming 

 near the spot. 



Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown has given the following interesting account of an 

 excursion in search of the eggs of the Dotterel in 1873 * : — 



" Some years ago my friend Captain H. W. Feilden and myself obtained the 

 kind permission of the lessee of a shooting, in a certain wild district of Scotland, 

 to obtain the eggs of the Dotterel [Charadrius morinellus), which rare species was 

 known to breed upon a mountain on the property. The gamekeeper, however, 

 during three successive seasons, failed to obtain them for us, and assured us that 

 none had frequented their accustomed haunts during these years ; further, that a 

 young English gentleman, who was shooting there, had killed in one day the two 

 old birds and the three young; and that, since that time, none had been seen 

 upon the mountain, though, upon an adjoining property, two pairs had bred 

 undisturbed the year previous to our visit. 



" It was, therefore, with but the very faintest expectations of success that 

 Captain Feilden and myself, accompanied by the gamekeeper, started to ascend the 

 mountain on the morning of the 16th June of the present year (1873). Indeed, 

 we already consoled ourselves with the thought that we would, at all events, see 

 the ground which was known at one time to have been occupied by this now rare 

 British bird, and have a good walk and a view from the top. We reached the top 

 of the mountain, some 3000 feet above the sea, at nine o'clock a.m., and found a 

 broad, almost level, moss-covered plateau stretching before us to a distance of about 

 three-quarters of a mile. Scattered over this level mossy ground were number- 

 less small pieces of grey rock, partially embedded in the yielding moss, and the 

 moss itself rose in ridges or hummocks, giving an irregular outline to the surface, 

 or, as it were, forming the latter into innumerable miniature hills and valleys. 



* " On the Nesting of the Dotterel in Scotland," Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, vol. ii. part ii. 

 pp. 237-240. 



