480 PLOVER GROUP. 



The common dotterel, which attains a length of 9 inches, is one of the species 

 resembling the typical plovers in having the abdomen of the adult in the breeding- 

 plumage black, and may be recognised by this feature, coupled with the rich 

 chestnut hue of the lower breast at the same season, the grey axillaries, and the 

 circumstance that the beak is shorter than the third toe without the claw ; the 

 two latter features serving to distinguish this prettily-marked bird at all seasons. 

 Although both sexes are not very much unlike, the female is somewhat the larger 

 and handsomer of the two, being brighter coloured, and having more black on the 

 abdomen ; but in both there is the same white crescent, narrowly bordered with 

 black, on the breast. The dotterel chiefly breeds on the northern tundras, beyond 

 the limits of forest, of Europe and Asia, although a few nest in the northern 

 parts of Britain, while it winters in Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa ; a few 

 individuals remaining on the northern border of the Mediterranean. An allied 

 form is the Oriental dotterel (C. veredus), which breeds in Mongolia, and winters 

 in the countries from Java to Australia ; this species being distinguished by its 

 shorter third toe, and the white abdomen in the summer dress. " The dotterel," 

 observes Mr. Seebohm, " is essentially a bird of the fallows, and where there is no 

 cultivated land it picks out the dry, bare places on which to feed. It avoids the 

 swamps, and is seldom or never seen on the banks of rivers or lakes. The seashore 

 has no attractions for the dotterel, nor does it seem to care for pasture ; but it 

 loves to trip amongst clods of earth, and seeks its food on the bare mountain-sides. 

 There it is very tame, and is easier to approach than any other species of plover 

 with which I am acquainted." From this tameness the bird derives its title the 

 name " dotterel " signifying a foolish or dull person. Dotterels migrate in even 

 greater numbers than the true plovers, and from the circumstance that out of the 

 tens of thousands that pass in spring from Africa to the Arctic tundras scarcely 

 any are seen to alight in the intervening countries, it is surmised that this 

 tremendous journey is accomplished in the course of a single night. Dotterels 

 formerly bred in the neighbourhood of Carlisle. The nest is merely a slight 

 hollow in the ground, or among moss or grass, in which three eggs are deposited. 

 Curiously enough, the male dotterel takes by far the larger share in the work of 

 incubation and rearing the young ; this being not unf requently the case in those 

 rare instances where the female is superior in size and brilliancy of coloration to 

 her lord and master. The reason for such a total change in the relations of the 

 two sexes remains, however, a complete mystery. 



The three members of this group in which the first toe remains are the 

 Falkland Island dotterel ((7. modestus), the Magellanic plover (C. sociabilis), and 

 the Australian four- toed dotterel (C. rufiventris). 



. Closely allied to the plovers are the birds commonly known as 



lapwings or green plovers, some of the distinctive features of which 

 have been already noticed on p. 476, These birds differ from the plovers in having 

 at least the basal third of the middle pair of tail-feathers white ; by the wings, 

 which may or may not be armed with a spur, being blunt, with the first and 

 second quills shorter than the third and fourth, which are of nearly equal 

 length; and by the front of the metatarsus being covered with large scutes, 

 instead of small reticulated scales. The head is often provided with a crest. 



