509 



3 



appearance in each season by the 20th of April ; they are seen for about ten days, some probably 

 moving on to the northward, and their places being supplied for a time by other arrivals from 



the south From these counties the birds pass on to more northern localities, and are seen 



in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumber- 

 land, and various parts of Scotland, always inhabiting high ground." Both Heysham and 

 Montagu say that it breeds on the Mendips, in Somersetshire, as it doubtless did in their time ; 

 but since then it has been nearly exterminated ; and Mr. Cecil Smith writes to me that its 

 occurrence at all in that county is a rare event, and the last authentic instance he knows of was 

 in May 1869, when one was shot on the Steep Holmes, and a few others seen there and about 

 Weston-super-Mare. I observe, however, a notice in the ' Zoologist' for 1871 by Mr. F. D. 

 Power, who writes as follows : — " On the 1st of May 1869, 1 obtained five Dotterels, shot the day 

 previous on the Mendips. These birds are said to occur here very seldom ; however, on the 21st 

 of August, I saw one specimen and heard another on the same hill where the five were obtained 

 the year previous." If the few Dotterel that visit the Mendips meet with the same warm 

 reception which welcomed the unfortunate " trip " referred to by Mr. Power, it can scarcely be 

 wondered at that they no longer breed there, but prefer to seek safer quarters. Mr. J. Eocke 

 records an instance of one having been killed at Lutwyche Hall, in Shropshire. On the east 

 coast it is occasionally seen in the spring and autumn, but much less frequently than used to be 

 the case. In Norfolk, Mr. Stevenson says, it is by no means so numerous as in former days ; yet 

 it still visits that county at the end of spring, and again a few months later, frequenting the 

 warrens and fens of the western parts of the county. And Mr. Cordeaux (B. of the Humber Dist. 

 p. 91) speaks of it as " an occasional spring and autumn visitant, arriving in certain favourite 

 localities in the north wolds about the third or fourth week in April, and in the Humber 

 marshes during the first week in May, where they continue till about the third week, and then 

 depart northward." 



Although it nested in the lake-districts when Heysham wrote his interesting account of its 

 breeding-habits in Cumberland, it now no longer does so, that I can ascertain. Captain Feilden 

 wrote to an anonymous correspondent of the ' Field ' who appeared to have lately seen this 

 species breeding near Keswick, but could elicit no response to his inquiries. Mr. A. G. More, 

 in his paper on the breeding-range of our British birds (Ibis, 1865, p. 431), writes as follows: — 

 "With respect to Derbyshire, Sir John Crewe informs me that he has often heard from his 

 gamekeeper that it was quite easy, fifteen or twenty years ago, to shoot Dotterels, when they 

 bad young, on the Derbyshire hills, bordering on Staffordshire. These hills are now nearly all 

 under cultivation ; and Sir John Crewe believes that the Dotterel no longer stays to breed, though 



small flocks are still seen in May The Rev. H. B. Tristram tells me that a few pairs linger 



on the borders of Durham and Cumberland, and that he has heard of nests being taken on the 



top of Cheviot, where he himself has seen the birds Mr. T. Edward finds the nest in 



Aberdeen and Banff shires; and Mr. W. Dunbar marks the bird as breeding regularly in 

 Sutherland and Caithness." In Scotland, though, as elsewhere, its numbers have greatly 

 decreased, it still breeds in some of the less-frequented localities ; and I have seen both the 

 eggs and the young birds in down obtained there by Mr. E. Booth, of Brighton; and I give 

 below some details of its nidification in Scotland (for obvious reasons suppressing all information 



