22 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



birds that have been used to breed in certain districts 

 once take it into their heads that the place or places 

 are no longer fitted for them, they leave them, not to 

 return again. 



As this bird flights vast distances to breeding 

 stations on the tundras of Europe and Asia, there is 

 little to fear as regards its extirpation ; I only refer 

 to the bird in this country, where it has been treated 

 in the most inhospitable manner for so many years. 



Fields of old fallow lea, upland pastures, and 

 the table-lands of mountains and high hills are 

 favoured by the Dotterel as feeding-grounds ; it is 

 not a coast bird. At one time the Bustard and the 

 Dotterel could be seen on the same feeding-grounds, 

 and both are gone now. Kites, if required for avi- 

 aries, are brought from the Continent, so are their 

 tails ; and as it is necessary to kill the Kite to procure 

 its tail, the thinning-off process is resorted to. No 

 matter what you require, Bitterns or Little Bitterns, 

 Night Herons or Egrets, you can get them all by 

 paying for them ; also Dotterels. 



The eggs of the Common Ring Dotterel, four in 

 number, are deposited in a slight hollow scraped out 

 by the birds, arranged with their small ends together, 

 above the tide-mark among the pebbles or gravel, and 

 more frequently in the sand. They are very large for 

 the size of the bird, greyish-yellow in ground-colour, 

 covered with spots and dots, with small line markings ; 

 in fact they mimic the beach pebbles. This pleasing 

 and most interesting little Plover remains with us in 

 varied numbers, according to locality, throughout the 



