462 CHARADRIID^E. 



Somersetshire, besides the various mountains of the lake 

 counties, as stated by T. C. Heysham, Esq., and formerly 

 also by his father, Dr. Heysham, in his Catalogue of Cum- 

 berland Animals. There is no doubt, also, that they breed 

 on some of the mountains in Scotland. Braemar, in Aber- 

 deenshire, has been named. Colonel Thornton, in his 

 Sporting Tour, mentions having seen several pairs in 

 Scotland in the middle of August; and Montagu saw 

 them in pairs in that country sufficiently late in spring 

 to warrant the conjecture that they bred there. An egg 

 in my own collection was obtained on the Grampian Hills ; 

 this example is of a yellowish olive colour, blotched and 

 spotted with dark brownish black : one inch seven lines 

 and a half in length, by one inch two lines and a half 

 in breadth. 



Dotterel were more numerous than usual in the London 

 market during the spring of the present year, 1845 : I 

 counted seventeen couple at the shop of a poulterer at one 

 time. In July I heard of one nest of four eggs having 

 been taken on Saddleback. 



M. Temminck says the Dotterel is rare in Holland ; that 

 they are found, but only in small numbers, on the highest 

 mountains of Bohemia and Silesia, at elevations from four 

 thousand five hundred to four thousand eight hundred feet. 

 In France, according to M. Vieillot, they are only seen on 

 their passage in spring and autumn ; and they are included 

 in the Catalogues of the Birds of Provence, Genoa, and 

 Italy. They are seen in the Grecian Archipelago and the 

 Levant ; and the Zoological Society have received a speci- 

 men sent by Messrs. Dickson and Hoss from Trebizond. 

 Some are said to pass the winter in the south of Italy, 

 in Sicily and the Levant. 



The Dotterel are well known as most excellent birds for 



