26 DOTTEREL. 



For on you creep, or cower, or lie, or stoop, or go, 

 So, marking you with care, the apish bird doth do; 

 And acting every thing, doth never mark the net.' 



Montagu observes, that when disturbed, it frequently raises 

 one wing up, which may perhaps have given rise to the 

 popular notion. 



In Yorkshire these neat birds were formerly common on 

 the Wolds, as testified, 'exempli gratia,' by the house called 

 the 'Dotterel Inn,' erected, as Henry Eustatius Strickland, 

 Esq., of Apperley Court, near Tevvkesbury, has informed me, 

 by one of the family, and the sign painted by Mrs. Strickland. 



In my parish of Nafferton, a few are annually met with on 

 their passage to and fro; I have one of a pair which were 

 shot within a few hundred yards of the Vicarage, by Mr. John 

 Dickson, of this place, and by him presented to me; and 

 another, one of three killed at a shot, by a farm servant 

 of his, on the wold, above the village, in May, 1852. They 

 remain two or three weeks, resorting to the fallows and open 

 districts; very few, however, now come, compared with those 

 that used to visit these parts. They are occasionally met with 

 on the moors about Halifax, in spring and early summer, and 

 sometimes come to breed on the Marsden and Slaithwaite 

 Moors, are also rare near Sheffield, and very rare near Leeds, 

 as is not to be wondered at. One was shot at Staincross, near 

 Barnsley, in 1830. They are also met with in Derbyshire, 

 Wiltshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Suffolk, and 

 on the Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire, where they are said to 

 breed; and the Downs in Wiltshire. About Swinhope, says 

 the Eev. E. P. Alington, Dotterels are local, arriving half-yearly 

 at particular spots, during their migration to breed. One 

 locality is at North Summer Coats, not far from the wintry 

 railway station of 'Great Coats,' on the estate of Henry 

 Alington Pye, Esq. In Dorsetshire, on Portland and near 

 Weymouth, John Garland, Esq. has informed me that a few 

 annually occur. In Norfolk it is rather rare. One, a male, 

 was killed near Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, the 9th. of May, 

 1850, by flying against the telegraph wires on the Eastern 

 Counties Eailway; a female was shot on the following day 

 on Guyhirn Wash, and a pair ,on Bottisham Fen in May, 

 1851; others have been met with near Cambridge and Eoyston. 

 In Cornwall it is rare, but has occurred at Bar Point, Gwyllyn 

 Vase, and other places. 



