THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 91 



our vehicle on the road; and, though we stopped for some 

 minutes to admire him, he, nothing daunted, retained his 

 ground, and continued uttering the call from the same spot, so 

 long as we were within sight and hearing. Great numbers nidify 

 in the wilder parts of the county Antrim. During a tour towards 

 the end of this month, in the wilds of Connaught, we saw many of 

 these birds on the wild low-lying bog near Polraney, and in the 

 low tracts of the island of Achil, as well as near the summit of 

 the lofty mountain of Nephin (2,640 feet in height). On the 

 top of Lughnaquilla, the highest of the Wicklow mountains 

 (above 3,000 feet), one was observed by a scientific friend on the 

 7th of July, 1836. Mr. Davis observes, that golden plover 

 build on the bare, exposed sides or tops of the mountains of 

 Tipperary. Although he obtained the eggs fresh from two 

 nests on the 1st of May, 1841), he remarks, that they are 

 extremely difficult to be discovered. The bird itself is noticed 

 as easily approached at this season. Mr. Poole has met with 

 them in some numbers during summer amid the large tracts of 

 peat moss on the summits of the lofty Comeragh mountains 

 (Waterford), but was unable to find one of their nests. They 

 breed commonly in the county of Kerry .* Yery soon after the 

 breeding season our native birds gather into flocks (on the 12th 

 of August I have seen forty together), and delight us when ad- 

 mitting of our near approach, as they then do, on the green 

 pastoral hills, or on the verdurous spots among the heath, to 

 which they are so partial. 



The mournful note of the golden plover, during the anxious 

 period of the breeding season, has been alluded to ; but at other 

 times there is a wild life in its cry winch is quite inspiriting : 



" And in the plover's shrilly strain 

 The signal whistle's heard again. f" 



* Mr. T. F. Neligan. 



f Lady of the Lake, Canto V. Stanza XI. This couplet, applicable to the 

 present bird, is misappropriated to the great plover, in an extract copied into Yar- 

 rell's work (vol. ii. p. 438, 2nd edit.) The species being unknown in Scotland 

 cannot, of course, be alluded to in a poem so correctly and admirably descriptive of 

 Highland scenery and its adjuncts as Scott's Lady of the Lake. 



