660 SCOLOPACID.E. 



ous parts of the coast, and are considered to be very good 

 eating. In the autumn of 1836, a few were sent to the Lon- 

 don market from Lincolnshire, where they liad been fatted 

 in confinement with some Ruffs. These small birds, from 

 abundance of nutritious food, had increased beyond their 

 usual size, were very fat, delicately white in colour, and by 

 the party for whom they were purchased, and by whom the 

 birds were eaten, Avere said to be of excellent flavour. 



The Dunlin is so common all round the British islands, 

 that an enumeration of particular localities is unnecessary. 

 About the end of April or the beginning of May, some of 

 them having then paired, these birds leave the sea coast, and 

 retire, occasionally only a few miles inland from their marine 

 situation, but the greater part go northward. 



Mr. Thompson says it is abundant in Ireland, and a few 

 breed there. Mr. Macgillivray, in a communication to Mr. 

 Audubon, says, " about the middle of April these birds be- 

 take themselves to the moors, in the northern part of Scot- 

 land, and in the larger Hebrides, where they may be found 

 scattered in the haunts selected by the Golden Plovers, with 

 which they are so frequently seen in company that they have 

 obtained the name of Plover's pages. In the Hebrides, from 

 this season until the end of August, none are to be found 

 along the shores. The nest is a slight hollow in a dry place, 

 having a few bits of withered heath and grass irregularly 

 placed in it. The eggs are four in number. If, during in- 

 cubation, a person approaches their retreats, the male espe- 

 cially, but frequently the female also, flies up to meet the 

 intruder, settles on a tuft near him, or runs along and uses 

 the same artifices for decoying him from the nest or young 

 as the Plover or Ring Dotterel. Towards the end of Au- 

 gust, the different colonies betake themselves to the sandy 

 shores. On a large sand- ford in Harris, I have at this sea- 

 son seen many thousands at once, running about with ex- 



