270 Wild Life in Wales 



superfluous. Since, however, these chapters are intended 

 rather for young people than for finished naturalists, I must 

 crave the indulgence of the reader for the following remarks. 



On the seashore, I have often watched Dunlins swimming 

 across little rock-pools, or when overtaken by an incoming 

 wave ; and, upon the moors, they never hesitate to adopt 

 that means of locomotion, in order to reach the other 

 side of their miniature lakes, or when a tuft of weed in 

 mid-water has to be examined. When incapacitated from 

 flight, either a young, or old bird, both swims and dives 

 well, to escape danger. Another pretty habit which may 

 be studied alike upon the sandy beach, and on the moor, is 

 the way in which a male will sometimes run about after his 

 mate, with lowered head, and wings upstretched to their 

 fullest extent above his back, trilling out his little musical 

 " song " the while. A rival male is sometimes chased away 

 with similar demonstration. When the wings are raised in 

 this way, their silvery white under-surface becomes very 

 conspicuous, and contrasts well with the black patch upon 

 the breast. But the extent, or completeness, of this black 

 patch is subject to as much variation as are the upper 

 parts of the plumage ; at least, this is so in the birds which 

 breed in this country. 



Whether the amount of black on the breast of a breeding 

 Dunlin is any indication of the age of the individual, I do 

 not know, but I rather doubt it. As a rule, in my experi- 

 ence amongst our home-breeding birds, I have generally 

 found the black, however imperfect, considerably more pro- 

 nounced in the male than in the female, it being often 

 represented in the latter merely by a few black spots, but, 

 inland, it is seldom so complete in either sex as in birds seen, 

 and often shot, on the coast (where they were probably only 

 passing migrants bound for, or lately returned from, higher 

 latitudes) in April and May, and again in August and 

 September. Much the same thing is noticeable in regard 

 to our home-breeding Golden Plovers, and I am inclined 

 to think that, in either species, specimens in what may be 

 termed typical summer plumage^ are decidedly rare on our 

 moors, if, indeed, they occur at all. In the feathers on the 



