382 Charadriadce. 



prend mieux en temps pluvieux qu'un nulle autre saison. Our 

 word 'Plover' is derived from the French Pluvier* This is also 

 a nocturnal feeder, and can run very fast : during the day it 

 will squat or stand asleep, with its head drawn down between its 

 shoulders : it flies in large flocks, and if disturbed, the whole 

 flock will perform many aerial evolutions and rapid wheelings 

 before they again settle on the ground.f Sir R. Payne-Gallwey 

 remarks that it has a pretty habit of trotting nimbly along a 

 few steps, and then stopping motionless for some seconds, ere 

 resuming its run, and he adds that Curlews at a distance, not- 

 withstanding their much greater bulk and long peculiar bills, 

 bear such a wonderful resemblance to the Golden Plover, from 

 the way they sit, especially when herded together, that it is 

 very difficult to identify them.J I need not specify localities, 

 for it may be said to be distributed in flocks, though sparingly 

 and uncertainly, all over the county. In France it is Pluvier 

 dori ; in Germany, Goldregenpfeifer ; in Italy, Piviere dorato ; 

 in Spain, Chorlito ; and in Portugal, Tarambola. 



138. DOTTEREL (Charadrius mormellus). 



This, too, is, or perhaps I ought to say was, a thoroughly 

 Wiltshire bird, our county being one of the few enumerated by 

 Yarrell as its regular haunts. At the beginning of this century, 

 Colonel Montagu described it as a bird which annually visits us 

 in spring and autumn in its migratory flights to and from its 

 breeding-places in northern Europe ; and he adds, ' On the 

 Wiltshire downs it resorts to the new-sown corn or fallow 

 ground for the sake of worms, its principal food : in the autumn 

 they fly in families of five or six, which we have observed to be 

 the two old birds and their young ; but sometimes a dozen or 

 more flock together.' They generally rested but a few days 

 amongst us, but during that period they were often so numerous 

 that sportsmen now alive have killed from forty to fifty. Now 



Yarrell's ' British Birds,' 3rd edition, vol. ii., p. 449. 

 t Selby's ' Illustrations of British Birds,' vol. ii., p. 234. 

 J Sir R. Payne-Gallwey's ' Fowler in Ireland,' pp. 174-182. 



