264 THE GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL 



few parties cross by internal fly-lines down great river valleys ; 

 this is especially the case with individuals breeding on the 

 Siberian tundras, although in America coast lines are chiefly 

 followed, as in the western Patearctic region. Whilst on our coast 

 the Dunlin is not particularly a shy bird, except when congre- 

 gated in large flocks, which are usually approached with difficulty. 

 Odd birds may often be watched feeding amongst the dykes on 

 salt marshes at a distance of a few feet. The Dunlin is an active 

 little creature, almost incessantly in motion, running about the 

 muddy shore at the margin of the water, and often wading 

 through the shallow tide-pools, or amongst the broken receding 

 waves. Its flight is rapid, but does not differ in any important 

 respect from that of other small Waders. Flocks of Dunlins often 

 indulge in various graceful aerial evolutions, spreading out like a 

 net, closing up again, wheeling and advancing with a common 

 impulse, just like the autumn flights of Starlings. The food of 

 the Dunlin consists of crustaceans, sand-worms, rnollusks, etc., on 

 the shore ; but insects and their larvae, small worms, ground 

 fruits, and various vegetable fragments are eaten in summer. Its 

 note is a rather harsh J>urr — hence one of its trivial names — but 

 at the breeding grounds it utters a long-drawn J>eez/i, something 

 like the well-known cry of the Greenfinch. The male trills 

 repeatedly during the pairing season, like most other Sandpipers. 

 Nidification. — The Dunlin begins to arrive at its breeding 

 grounds towards the end of April, and in southern haunts its eggs 

 are laid during May, but in the Arctic regions they are about a 

 month later. The nest is always well concealed, often by the 

 side of a little moorland pool amongst the rush tussocks, or 

 beneath a bush of bilberry or heather, and even more frequently 

 in a tuft of cotton or other coarse grass. It is simply a hollow 

 with a scanty lining of dry leaves and grass, and perhaps a few 

 twigs round the margin. The eggs are four in number, and vary 

 in ground colour from pale olive to pale brown and buff, blotched 

 and spotted with rich reddish and blackish brown, and with a 

 few obscure underlying markings of gray. They are pyriform in 

 shape, and measure on an average i-3 inch in length by "95 inch 

 in breadth. The parent bird sits lightly, leaving the nest at the 

 least alarm. Incubation, performed by the female, lasts from 



