THE DOTTEREL. 113 



birds, the only character in which they fall within the scope 

 of these pages) are very little known. They certainly breed 

 much farther upland and inland than either the plover or 

 the lapwing, and circumstances would lead to the supposi- 

 tion that they remain much closer during the breeding 

 time than any of our birds which rear their young in the 

 wild moors. Their eggs have not been seen (at least there is 

 no satisfactory proof of the fact) in any part of England, or 

 in Scotland, southward of the Tay, or northward of the 

 Grampians. If they resorted to the hills north-east of the 

 great glen that divides Scotland by the line of the lakes and 

 the Caledonian Canal, they would be seen on their return 

 southward, on the flat grounds from Culloden eastward into 

 Moray \ but I never heard much of them there, though they 

 have a name in Gaelic, and are known and occasionally seen, 

 though not in flocks, in the highlands farther to the south. 



They come rather late to the south of England, and return 

 early. April, early in the month, is the usual time of their 

 appearance in the south of England ; but they continue to 

 come as late as the beginning of June : for it is not easy to 

 believe that the same flocks can halt for two months on their 

 passage northward. 



The only place in Scotland in which 1 have had continued 

 opportunities of observing them for successive years, is the 

 cold range of high ground which extends from the Seidlaw 

 Hills north-eastward in the direction of the precipitous and 

 cave-worn promontory of the Redhead. They used to arrive 

 there, upon the edges of the moors and the cold upland fields, 

 without halting on the lower and richer ones, generally 

 during the first three weeks of April, unless the season was 

 very backward. The flocks were not large at that season, 

 but the birds kept together and flew about, so that one could 

 not positively say that they either came from the south or 

 went to the north. In September they returned again, 



VOL. II. I 



