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NOTES ON THE BREEDING-HABITS OF THE 
DOTTEREL ON THE YENESEI. 
BY 
MAUD D, HAVILAND. 
THE Tundra, although not varying in altitude for more 
than two or three hundred feet for many miles round the 
River Yenesei, has nevertheless most marked distinctions 
in avifauna. The lowest marshes are full of Divers and 
Phalaropes : the gullies and swampy slopes hold Willow- 
Grouse and Red-throated Pipits; and on the highest 
points there are Shore-Larks, Wheatears and Dotterels. 
But in that country of vast level horizons, these belts of 
different conditions are, as it were, telescoped together, 
with the result that sometimes a bird misses its proper 
environment by a few yards, and you may find such 
anomalies as a Willow-Grouse breeding among the Stint 
in the river swamps, or a Dotterel nesting in willow-scrub 
and marsh-grass in such a place as a Snipe might have 
chosen. Such a nest was that shown in Fig. 1. It 
was built in one of the wide, wet valleys that slope from 
the higher tundra to the river; and I think that the 
view from the spot must be one of the most noble in the 
world; for the silent, slow Golchika winds eastwards 
among the grey-green mud hills, and you can trace its 
course mile after mile, until in the furthest distance it 
meets the thick clotted clouds that hang along the curve 
of the earth, and alone, as it seems, set any limit to 
human vision. 
The bird at the nest was very tame. How tame can 
be judged by the photograph, which was obtained by 
careful stalking, and shows the camera and tripod reflected 
in the bird’s eye. When put off her eggs she crept off 
in a curious mammalian way, and began to feign injury. 
I tried to get a series of photographs of her attitudes at 
such times, but the extreme quickness of her movements - 
and the nature of the ground baffled all attempts. 
It would have needed a kinematograph to do justice to 
