THE GOLDJEN PLOVER. 93 



sporting in the latter half of October 1849, on the high moun- 

 tains about Meggarnie Castle, Perthshire, we occasionally met with 

 flocks of golden plover, and killed some ; but their numbers were 

 so small, compared with those in the Belfast mountains at the same 

 period of the year, that I looked upon them merely as birds bred 

 in the district. When grouse-shooting over the very extensive 

 moor of Aberardser in Inverness-shire, possessing every variety of 

 ground, I was surprised never to meet with the golden plover 

 during the month of September 1842. A flock, however, was seen 

 by one of our party about the 20th of the month. I saw the 

 species commonly in Islay during January 1849, and was told 

 that numbers breed there. 



The third volume of the ' Ornithological Biography ' contains 

 a very interesting account of the American and, at the same time, 

 of the Scottish golden plover, from the respective observations of 

 Audubon and Macgillivray. These birds, described there as iden- 

 tical, are now generally considered by ornithologists to be distinct 

 species. 



THE DOTTEREL. 



Charadrius morinettus, Linn. 



Is very rarely met with in this island ; 



Though a regular summer visitant to Great Britain; breeding 

 annually on the lofty mountain summits about the English lakes 

 and in different parts of Scotland. In England, however, it 

 " does not seem to go in any numbers far to the westward * * * 

 has not been seen more than once or twice in Cornwall, and only 

 occasionally in Devonshire and Dorsetshire.* 



The earliest notice of the occurrence of the dotterel in Ireland 

 appeared in the " Zoological Proceedings " for 1834, where I men- 

 tioned one which had been shot on a high hill at Einnebrogue, 

 near Downpatrick, a few years previously (it was believed in the 



Canutus) and dunlin. In a wet autumnal day (but never in winter), he has fre- 

 quently driven small flocks of the latter species before him, until they, uuited, 

 formed a flock which he thought worthy to receive his charge. 



* Yarrell, B. B. vol. ii. p. 455, 2nd edit. 



