8 BRITISH BIRDS. [vOL. XI. 
the variety of her arts. First she threw herself on her 
breast and lay as if crucified. Then, jumping up, she 
ran forward and collapsed into a fluttering heap. Next 
she dashed up in a kind of anger, and ran sideways (and 
this was how I liked best to see her) like a little @dicnemus 
in display, with feathers all bustled out. When she had 
(or thought she had) drawn you from the nest, she would 
break off and run quickly out of sight. Moreover, if 
you paid no attention to her guile, but went straight to 
the eggs to handle them, she would drop these tricks of 
pretence at once, and if you glanced secretly at her while 
still pretending to examine the nest, you would find her 
watching you silently or else tripping round the place 
nimbly enough. Only when she thought thatshe had 
captured your attention and could bamboozle you again 
did she fall anew to her antics. 
It is only just to say that I have never identified a 
Dotterel’s sex at the nest, and use the feminine pronoun 
here only because it pleases me better than the neuter. 
The Rev. H. H. Slater, who observed the Dotterel in 
northern Europe, found two males on the eggs, and 
Naumann (Die Vogel Mitteleuropas) also says that the 
male incubates. In the British Bird Book it is stated : 
“The young .. . are assisted in their search for food 
probably by both parents, but there is no direct evidence.”’ 
On the Yenesei I shot a female Dotterel that was accom- 
panied by a nearly full-fledged young one. Mr. Trevor- 
Battye (Icebound on Kolguev) shot two females off their 
nests in Kolguev.* One nest he remarks contained four 
eggs, evidently all laid by one bird, and Dr, Walter 
(Ibis, 1904, p. 229) found a similar clutch on the Taimyr. 
I found two nests of the Dotterel at Golchika, and 
heard of a third, all within a space of half a mile and 
placed on the little hills that form the blutf boundary of 
* When in Russian Lapland with my friend, A. E. Hamerton, we 
shot, Aug. 4, 1899, two old Dotterel within a few yards of two young 
scarcely able to fly. Both the old birds on dissection proved to be 
males.—H. F. W. 
