THE BIRDS OF CUMBERLAND. 135 



feathers for artificial flies that are but Uttle inferior 

 to those of the Dotterel and more easily procured, 

 one can hardly understand their scarcity. 



" Mr. Heysham's paper in the Magazine of 

 Natural History for 1838 has become a classic, 

 and been quoted in extenso by nearly every writer 

 on British birds since ; but it is rather mislead- 

 ing, as the late James Coo23er, curator of the 

 Warrington Museum, wrote in the Zoologist, 1861, 

 and cannot be taken as a guide to those who 

 intend to look for the eggs, for nest there is none : 

 ' The birds do not select the summits of the 

 highest mountains, nor do they lay their eggs 

 where the fringe moss grows, but in a depression 

 upon short dense grass, a little below the sum- 

 mit.' This, I may say, is correct, and quite tallies 

 with my own observations, for I have generally 

 found Dotterel frequenting the upper slopes of the 

 highest mountains, and the summits of the spurs of 

 the highest mountains, but not the summits of the 

 highest mountains. The Dotterel only lays three 

 eggs. When disturbed, the Dotterel usually runs 

 off its eggs to a little distance, and is mute ; but 

 occasionally, if the eggs are hard sat, it will flutter 

 off its nest as if wounded, and remain calling within 

 about twenty yards, uttering a note which is some- 

 what like that of the Golden Plover, but much lower. 

 After the young are hatched, the parent birds behave 

 quite differently, and exhibit great anxiety for their 

 safety. All the eggs I have taken I took in June, 

 but that they sometimes lay at the end of May, and 

 even in July, is evident, as I have found eggs hard 

 sat the first week in June, and seen young ones then. 



