THE DOTTEREL 285 



not amongst our rarer birds, at all events amongst 

 those which may be termed uncommon. I can 

 myself remember the time when the dotterel was 

 generally to be seen on the hillsides of Cumber- 

 land and the Northern counties. Saunders states 

 that this decrease is mainly due to the esteem in 

 which its feathers are held by the makers of 

 artificial trout-flies, rather than to the greed of the 

 ornithologist or egg-collector. This may have 

 been the case in former years, but I do not think 

 that the demand for the feathers of this bird has, 

 for many years past, been very considerable, inas- 

 much as the dressing of artificial trout-flies is very 

 different to what it was fifteen or twenty years 

 ago, the feathers of the starling and other birds 

 being used instead. And who can say that 

 starlings are less common than they were ? On 

 the contrary, they are infinitely more numerous 

 than ever. So I am inclined to suppose that the 

 diminution in the numbers of the dotterel must be 

 due to some other cause. Even in those days 

 when dotterel feathers were considered indispen- 

 sable, their use was restricted to the manufac- 

 ture of but very few trout-flies, certainly not 

 enough to account for so marked a decrease as 

 has been apparent during recent years, and since 

 the demand for them has been so much lessened. 

 Nor can it, as far as I can see, be argued that the 

 feathers of other birds have been substituted 

 because of the decrease of the dotterel, inasmuch 

 as the dressings of the present patterns of trout- 



