82 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



Ireland will always no doubt be a head-quarters for these 

 dainty little birds, and they are still to be had in more or 

 less abundance every spring- and autumn along our eastern 

 coasts. There, too, are reed beds and gorse dunes that hide 

 in season other quarry for the sportsman naturalist happy 

 hunting grounds once of the fen netsman. Daniel describes 

 how when a fowler discovers a marsh hillock where the ruffs 

 and reeves play, he places his net overnight, of the same 

 kind as those called " clop " or day-nets only, generally single, 

 and about fourteen yards long by four broad. At daybreak 

 he resorts to his stand at the distance of one or two hundred 

 yards from the nets the later the season the shyer the birds, 

 and he must keep the further off. He then makes his pull, 

 taking such birds as are within reach. After that, he places 

 stuffed birds or " stales " to entice those that are continually 

 traversing the fen. " A fowler has been known thus to catch 

 forty-four birds at the iirst haul, and the whole taken in the 

 morning was six dozen; though, when the stales are set, 

 seldom more than two or three are taken at the same time." 



Mr. Lubbock, in his "Fauna of Norfolk," says that in 

 that county nets were never used to take this bird, but 

 rather snares made of horsehair. Then again there is "the 

 foolish dotterel." In the whole range of English poetry, 

 only two writers mention him ; one is eccentrically unfortu- 

 nate in his remarks, and the other draws heavily upon the 

 recognized licence of his order. Wordsworth in the " Idle 

 Shepherd Boy " writes : " the sand lark chants a joyous 

 song." Now that appellation is a local name for Charddrius 

 morinellus, and we need not say that the shepherd boy would 

 deserve any other title but that of idle who caught the 

 silent dotterel chanting any sort of ditty. Drayton again, in 

 " Polyolbion," tells us 



" The dotterel which we think a very dainty dish, 

 Whose taking makes more sport as man no more can wish, 

 For as you creepe, or coure, or lye, or stoupe, or goe, 

 So marking you with care, the apish bird doth soe, 



