SOME MOORLAND BIRDS 73 



for timber, stand soughing in the it probably nests sparingly in the 



breeze. ... At last the flats are remainder of Wales, 



gained, and almost simultaneously the Up here the crow of the wild, red 



"purring" of a dunlin is heard, and grouse delights the ear, and black game, 



soon after five of the birds are on view, growing scarcer year by year, are 



What a confiding species the dunlin is ; occasionally met with, especially where 



how utterly devoid of fear ! First the moors join forces with the wooded 



they keep careering rapidly round " cwms " ; here it is, too, that the 



you, uttering their strange whistling clamorous curlews have their summer 



purr, then they settle literally within home and fashion their rough nest of 



a yard or two of your feet, finally to cotton grass on a drier portion of the 



trip daintily along over the rough- moor. You will be lucky if, at first 



coated hillocks ere taking wing once asking so to speak, you chance on the 



again. Just here are a few small pools, four pale, spotted eggs, for though of 



how begotten no man can say, but great size they give more trouble to 



they appear to rise from the peaty find than you might suppose, 



soil ; round them are patches of waving But the most elusive of all these 



rushy grass. As you approach, there moorland fowl is the golden plover ; 



steals out from one of these just in and more, it is scarce on these Bre- 



front of you a chestnut - backed, black- conshire heights. Nevertheless, this 



breasted dunlin, leaving exposed her ground always harbours one pair at 



four richly-blotched olive-buff eggs, least during summer, and suddenly, 



lying in their meagre nest of dry grass, as you top an appreciable rise, first 



as pretty a moorland picture as you a male's wild, plaintive whistle is 



will find anywhere. ... In a paren- heard, then the bird itself is seen 



thesis one may mention that no orni- a crouching, indistinct, running form, 



thologist has, as far as it is known, Occasionally he stops and pivots 



hitherto recorded the dunlin as breed- round jerkily to reveal his full, ebon 



ing in Breconshire ; yet it has done stomacher ; next minute, running 



so, though very locally, for years; as again, his variegated yellow back, 



is also the case in the adjoining coun- resembling a piece of the tawny waste 



ties of Carmarthen and Radnor. From suddenly imbued with life, faces you. 



Cardigan and Merioneth it has already Ignore this bird : his bent is to fool 



been reported and, Anglesey excepted, you and, if he can, induce you by 



6 



