THE PLOVER TRIBE 2249 



various small aquatic animals. In Britain the breeding season commences about the 

 middle of May, the nest being formed of dry herbage, with scraps of heath and 

 moss, and situated either in a hole in the ground, on a tuft of herbage, under the 

 shelter of a bunch of cotton grass, or, more rarely, among short grass or heath. 

 The eggs are very much like those of the lapwing, from which they may be distin- 

 guished by their superior size, the absence of olive in their markings, and their 

 brighter color. The parent birds are adepts in the art of inveigling away the in- 

 truder from the neighborhood of their eggs or young, the latter scattering them- 

 selves in all directions at the first alarm, to seek protection by skulking among the 

 surrounding herbage. 



The dotterels, of which the typical forms have but three toes, and, 

 Dotterels . ' r 



as already said, are frequently separated under the name of Eudromias, 



are smaller birds, forming a somewhat heterogeneous group, with but few distinc- 

 tive common characteristics, although none of them have the tail barred. The com- 

 mon dotterel, which attains a length of nine inches, is one of the species resembling 

 the typical plovers in having the abdomen of the adult in the breeding plumage 

 black, and may be recognized by this feature, coupled with the rich chestnut hue of 

 the lower breast at the same season, the gray axillaries, and the circumstance that 

 the beak is shorter than the third toe without the claw, the two latter features serv- 

 ing to distinguish this prettily-marked bird, at all seasons. Although both sexes 

 are not very much unlike, the female is somewhat the larger and handsomer of the 

 two, being brighter colored, and having more black on the abdomen, but in both 

 there is the same white crescent, narrowly bordered with black, on the breast. The 

 dotterel chiefly breeds on the northern tundras, beyond the limits of forest, of Europe 

 and Asia, although a few nest in the northern parts of Britain, while it winters in 

 Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, a few individuals remaining on the northern 

 border of the Mediterranean. An allied form is the Oriental dotterel ( C. veredus) , 

 which breeds in Mongolia, and winters in the countries from Java to Australia, this 

 species being distinguished by its shorter third toe, and the white abdomen in the 

 summer dress. "The dotterel," observes Mr. Seebohm, "is essentially a bird of 

 the fallows, and where there is no cultivated land it picks out the dry, bare places 

 on which to feed. It avoids the swamps, and is seldom or never seen on the banks 

 of rivers or lakes. The seashore has no attractions for the dotterel, nor does it seem 

 to care for pasture, but it loves to trip among clods of earth, and seeks its food on 

 the bare mountain sides. There it is very tame, and is easier to approach than any 

 other species of plover with which I am acquainted." From this tameness the bird 

 derives its title the name "dotterel" signifying a foolish or dull person. Dot- 

 terels migrate in even greater numbers than the true plovers, and from the circum- 

 stance that out of the tens of thousands that pass in spring from Africa to the 

 Arctic tundras scarcely are seen to alight in the intervening countries, it is surmised 

 that this tremendous journey is accomplished in the course of a single night. Dot- 

 terels formerly bred in the neighborhood of Carlisle. The nest is merely a slight 

 hollow in the ground, or among moss or grass, in which three eggs are deposited. 

 Curiously enough, the male dotterel takes by far the larger share in the work of in- 

 cubation and rearing the young, this being not unfrequently the case in those rare 



