314 THE PLOVERS 



differs from that of the adult in having the eye-stripe buff, the crown more dis- 

 tinctly striated ; the interscapulars and scapulars are black with a buff spot on each 

 side of the vane, giving this region the appearance of being coarsely necked with 

 buff, and thereby differing conspicuously from the delicate scale-like pattern, or 

 absolute uniform coloration of the adult. The long numerals and inner secondaries 

 are coloured as in the adults, but buff replaces white on the tail. The under parts 

 are buff narrowly and sharply striated with dark slate-grey. There is no prepectoral 

 band, and the breast and flanks are of a rich buff, but the abdomen is white. The 

 young in down has the forehead white, with a median and two lateral bands of black, 

 the latter converging to meet in the middle line to form a median band which, on 

 the crown, gives place to a circle of black enclosing an area mottled buff and black, 

 the black ring being itself surrounded by a broad ring of white, cut off from a white 

 collar by a narrow black line. Behind the eye is a patch of buff encircled by black. 

 The rest of the upper parts are mottled black, buff, and white, while the under parts 

 are white, [w. P. P.] 



2. Distribution. In the British Isles, outside Scotland, the dotterel is only a 

 summer resident in very small numbers in the Lake district, though formerly it was 

 much more numerous, breeding on many of the higher summits. In Scotland it is 

 more widely distributed, and has increased its range. A few pairs are stated to have 

 bred in S.W. Scotland, on the hills of Galloway and Dumfries ; but the stronghold of 

 this species is the great mountain system which includes the Grampians, the Monadh- 

 liath, and the Cairngorm groups, from North Argyll and Perth northward, and prob- 

 ably in smaller numbers west of the Great Glen. Here it breeds locally at a height of 

 about 2500 to 3000 feet. On the Continent it breeds on the Scandinavian high f jeld in 

 both Norway and Sweden, as well as in Finnish Lapland. In Russia it has been 

 found nesting on Waigatz and Novaya Zemlya, and on the tundra of the north, 

 as well as on the island of Kotlin (St. Petersburg), in the Northern Urals, and even 

 in the steppes of the Astrakhan government. Other continental breeding-places 

 are the Riesengebirge in Bohemia, Transylvania, and Styria. In Asia its range 

 extends across the tundra region of Siberia, to the new Siberian Isles, and above the 

 tree limit in the mountain ranges of the Alatau, Tarbagatai, Altai, and Sayans 

 mountains, as well as in the ranges of E. Siberia. Its winter range extends to 

 S. Europe, Northern Africa, Palestine, Persia, and Arabia. [F. c. B. J.] 



3. Migration. A summer visitor and a bird of passage. The birds first 

 arrive late in April or early in May, and for a few weeks they remain comparatively 

 widespread. But only a small number remain for the summer, and they are con- 



