268 SUMMER. 



we conjectured must have been that of the dottrel ; as, 

 though the colours of birds do not always correspond 

 accurately in tint with those of their eggs, there is a 

 trace of general resemblance. Those eggs were repre- 

 sented as being of the same number, size, and arrange- 

 ment, as those of the green plover, only pale in the 

 colour, and with less green, both in the ground and in 

 the markings. The shepherd marked the place, as 

 shepherds usually do, by a few stones at a little dis- 

 tance; but, when he returned, the eggs were gone, 

 whether hatched and off, or destroyed by some bird of 

 prey, of course he could not tell. 



It is rather singular, that the eggs of a bird that is 

 so abundant as the dottrel, should not have been met 

 with ; and also, that the young should not have been 

 seen, as we have no doubt that they breed in this 

 country ; though, on the continent, where they per- 

 form annual migrations, in flocks, not by mere flights, 

 but taking time to feed as they proceed both north- 

 wards and southwards, they take their summer pas- 

 sage to the extreme north. In the northern parts of 

 England, they are said to appear in April, and continue 

 coming till June ; and as they then find abundance of 

 food, they are in high condition. Indeed, " as fat as 

 a dottrel," is a common saying in some parts of the 

 country. Those that arrive so late as June if they do 

 arrive so late and the common plovers have not been 

 mistaken for them cannot proceed farther north than 

 this island, for the purposes of nidification. It is by 

 no means improbable that they may breed in some 

 remote places of the downs, and that as their colour 

 still more nearly resembles the earth than that of the 



