EUDROMIAS MORINELWUS. ] det 
[§ 3430. Onve—Robinson Fell, Cumberland, 5 July, 1835. 
From the late Mr. Heysham’s Collection, 1859. 
This formed Lot 166 at the sale of Mr. Thomas Coulthard Heysham’s 
collection in Mr. Stevens’s rooms, 16 May, 1859. There were five Dotterels’ 
eges in the sale’, of which this seemed to be the most satisfactory, from the 
memorandum in Mr. Heysham’s handwriting accompanying it as follows :— 
“Dotterel 2 eges taken on Robinson Fell by Cooper July 5: 1855 quite fresh 
285..d.... The above two eggs were found very near the summit of 
Robinson, on the North West corner on the bare grass near a stone laying side 
by side that is not point to point.” The number and symbol? (285 ¢) on the 
ticket are inscribed also on the egg, so that I have not the least doubt it is one 
of the very specimens mentioned by Mr. Heysham in his classical paper (Mag. 
Nat. Hist. ser. 2, ii. pp. 295-304), written in September, 1835, but not published 
until June, 1838, extracts from which have been reprinted in many subsequent 
accounts of the species. herein he stated (p. 502) :—‘ After repeated ex- 
cursions through the lake district this summer, for the express purpose, I was 
so fortunate as to obtain their eggs in two different localities, namely, three on 
Whiteside, contiguous to Helvellyn, on the 29th of June; and two on the 5th 
of July, on Robinson, in the vicinity of Buttermere. The former had been 
incubated twelve or fourteen days, the latter were only recently laid, and in 
both instances the birds were seen to leave their eggs; one, on quitting them, 
immediately spread out its wings and tail, which it trailed on the ground a 
short distance, and then went away without uttering a single note. On this 
day (5th July, 1855) a young bird, a few days old, was also captured.” 
Mr. James Cooper, named in the memorandum above given, who was sub- 
sequently Curator of the Museum at Warrington and died in 1879, at an 
advanced age, himself wrote in ‘The Zoologist’ for 1861 (p. 7638) :— 
“Mr. Heysham’s account as quoted cannot be taken as a guide by 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 eg¢s where the fringe 
moss grows, but in a depression upon short dense grass a little below the 
summit. Mr. Heysham only saw the place where I found the first egg, I 
believe, on record. This was on Whiteside, a short distance from the end of 
Swirreledge, the ridge which connects Whiteside and Helvellyn. I found 
another nest afterwards on Robinson, a mountain near Buttermere; the place 
selected was precisely the same as the first one. On the same day I found a 
young one, apparently only a few days old; it rose up close to my feet, and 
ran before me, or I should never have seen it. I may mention that the habits 
ot the dotterel are different from the other plovers that I am acquainted with, 
viz., the golden and ringed plovers; these are somewhat noisy when you are 
1 Of them I bought three—two for Mr. Gurney and Captain (afterwards 
Sir John) Orde respectively. The remaining two, one of which was described as 
“immature,” were bought by Mr. Samuel Stevens for Mr. Braikenridge. 
> The addition of the symbol suggests the possibility of the male bird having 
been killed from the nest, 
