i 14 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 
trodden on rather. The young ones, awkward-looking mottled 
yellow and brown puff-balls on stilts, run fast and well soon after 
they are hatched, and do not speedily acquire the use of those 
wings which, after a time, are to be so strong and swift. Very 
jealous too, are the parents as long as their young are only 
runners, and very plaintive is their incessant piping if you or 
your dog approach too near their place of concealment.—%y. 2, 
plate VII, 
164. DOTTEREL—(Charadrius morinellus) . 
Dottrel or Dotterel Plover, Foolish Dottrel.—This is a sum- 
mer visitor to our country, and in many localities where it 
used to be abundant, or at least common, it is now rare or 
almost unknown. ‘This is the case on parts at least of the York- 
shire Wolds, as well as in the Lake district. They are sought 
after by the Fly-fisher and by the Ornithologist and by the . 
Epicure, and from their exceedingly simple and unsuspicious 
habits they fall easy victims before the fowling-piece of modern 
days. The female makes no nest, but lays her customary three 
egos ina slight cavity on the ground near high mountain tops, 
where some tall-growing moss or other mountain herbage facili- 
tates concealment. The eggs are of an olivaceous hue, spotted 
plentifully with very dark brown or brownish-black. __ 
165. RINGED PLOVER—(Charadrius hiaticula). 
Ringed or Ring Dottrel—A very pretty shore-bird, of inter- 
esting habits, and not infrequent, especially in winter, on many 
parts of the British coast. In quiet parts, where large expanses 
of sand or shingle, or even mud, are left by the receding tide, 
it may be seen in numbers. It seems to make no nest :—the eggs 
are laid on the sand, and often at avery considerable distance 
from the sea; as, for instance, on the warrens in Norfolk and 
Suffolk. They are four in number, very large in proportion to 
