190 Order XIII 



short. In fact its habits are not unlike those of other 

 Plovers, except that it is shy and less easy to flush. 

 In colour it is sandy brown above and buff below, 

 with darker markings, the throat and belly alone being 

 whitish; the eyes are large and yeUow. This species 

 ranges over central and southern Europe, north Africa 

 with the Canaries, and central and south-western Asia 

 to India, Ceylon, and Burma. 



Family CHARADRIID.^, or Plovers and their Allies 



The Dotterel {Eudromias morinellus) used to be 

 well known on the spring and autumn passage in many 

 parts of England, but is now rare, owing perhaps to 

 the cultivation of the wilder locahties. Nevertheless 

 individuals, and even small parties, stUl occasionally 

 halt on their way, and it would be a bold man who 

 would assert that so retiring a bird had entirely ceased 

 to breed on the hiUs of Lakeland. But it does so no 

 longer in Dumfries -shire and Galloway, though it is 

 scattered over the hill-tops in the Grampians and the 

 Cairngorms, where it lays three eggs, much like those 

 of the Peewit, in a depression in mossy ground with 

 no real lining, miless it be a few bits of hchen. The 

 food is of worms and insects, the note querulous at 

 the nest, while the flight, though at times swift, is 

 very short when the birds move around an intruder 

 with every sign of anxiety. Abroad the Dotterel ranges 

 over the tundras and feUs of northern Europe and 

 Asia ; it might almost be considered an Arctic species 

 if it had not been found breeding in Bohemia, Styria, 

 Transylvania and the hills of central Asia. The general 

 coloration is light brown, but the crown and belly are 

 black, as are the tips of the feathers above a white 



