DOTTEREL 339 



a whistle. Another note he renders " diit, diit, diit, diit" from which 

 note the bird is known as diitchen. A dotterel that was put off its 

 nest by Gloger uttered a soft pleasant sounding trill, " sisihririri." l 



Gloger found the dotterel nesting on barren mountain-tops 4000 

 feet high, on the borders of South Germany between Bohemia and 

 Silesia, but there it has now become very rare. 2 Its nesting range 

 extends from North Britain across Northern Europe and Asia to the 

 Pacific. It has been found as far north as Novaya Zemlya, and at 

 74 N. lat. in the Taimyr Peninsula. It winters in large numbers in 

 Palestine and North Africa, but apparently not much farther south. 

 (For details see " Classified Notes.") 



The autumn migration of old and young birds generally takes 

 place in September, but they have not been so regularly observed at 

 this time on the chalk-wolds as in the spring. They probably keep 

 more to the coast-line. The autumn passage is generally well over by 

 the end of October, but there is a record of one bird shot out of a 

 flock of one hundred or more on November 29, 1905, on a tidal estuary 

 in Donegal. 3 The birds were at first mistaken for golden-plover. The 

 fact of one being shot should leave no doubt as to their identity, 

 otherwise the lateness of the date, and the fact that the species has 

 seldom been observed in Ireland, might have allowed a reasonable 

 doubt as to the correctness of the identification. Large numbers 

 have been recorded as passing over Heligoland in the end of August 

 and early in September. 4 



1 Naumann, Vogel Mitteleiiropas, viii. p. 50. - Ibid. 



3 Field, 1905, vol. cvi. p. 995. 



4 Yarrell, British Birds, vol. iv. p. 253. 



VOL. III. 2 X 



