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to Von Heuglin, who remarks (Syst. Ueb. p. 56) that it is met with during winter in Egypt and 

 along the shores of the Bed Sea. In 1851 he saw a large flock of Dotterels on the desert 

 between Sakkara and the Fayoom. Captain Shelley does not appear to have met with this 

 species during his several visits to Egypt ; we may therefore suppose it is not common in the 

 Fayoom or valley of the Nile. Canon Tristram, writing on the ornithology of the Sahara (Ibis, 

 ii. 1860), mentions that " vast flocks of Dotterels in winter plumage occurred frequently during 

 our wanderings, wherever lalpha (Andropogon) or other desert vegetation harboured beetles. 

 They were very tame, and in good condition. It is of course only a winter visitant." Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, jun., also met with it commonly at Ain Oussera, and says that specimens shot on the 

 loth March had just begun to assume their summer dress; and Mr. Taczanowski writes (J. f. O. 

 1870, p. 54) that he met with numerous flocks on the hills between Ghelma and Constantine, 

 but nowhere else. I do not find any record of its occurrence in Southern Africa, and do not 

 believe that it passes south of the equator. 



To the eastward it extends as far as South-eastern Siberia, and probably occurs in Japan, 

 as Cassin includes it amongst the species obtained in a collection made at Hakodadi, though 

 Mr. Swinhoe suggests (Ibis, 1863, p. 444) that Cassin may have made a mistake. 



Mr. Blanford includes it in his notes on the avifauna of Persia, a specimen having been 

 obtained at Kazrun, west of Shiraz, in the month of January. Severtzoff, who found it in 

 Turkestan, writes that it occurs during passage in the north-eastern and north-western portions 

 of that country. In Siberia it was met with by Von Middendorff, who observed it on the 

 Taimyr river, in 73f° N. lat., on the 4th June, but adds that it resorted to the Byrranga 

 Mountains to breed, in the valleys of which it was extremely numerous. On the 3rd August 

 the young were fledged ; and on the 15th all had left. On the 24th May he met with it on the 

 Boganida; and on the 14th August the last one was seen there. 



Dr. Radde says that, on the alpine tundras at the headwaters of the Irkut, he met with it 

 breeding on the 15th June, 1859, at an altitude of 7500 to 8000 feet. On the southern slope of 

 the Munku-Sardik he observed it still higher, at an altitude of 10,000 feet. In June 1855 he 

 saw stragglers in the Kaja valley, near Irkutsk ; and during the autumn migration it touches 

 Lake Baikal, where, on the 9th September, he saw it in small parties, or singly near the 

 Possolskish convent. As above stated, it has been recorded from Japan by Cassin, but does not 

 appear to have been met with in China or India. 



Naturally the Dotterel is fearless and confiding in its habits, so much so as to have been 

 considered eminently stupid ; but continued persecution has rendered it, in our island at least, 

 much more wary. It is more of an upland bird than a shore- or marsh-haunting species, and 

 frequents heaths, pastures, and fallow lands, where it feeds on insects of various kinds, and 

 invariably resorts to the mountains for the purposes of nidification. It is doubtful if it now 

 breeds any where in England, though formerly it used to do so in the Lake district ; and some 

 most excellent notes were published by Mr. T. C. Heysham in Charlesworth's ' Magazine of 

 Natural History ' (ii. p. 300), which I cannot do better than transcribe as follows : — " In the 

 neighbourhood of Carlisle, Dotterels seldom make their appearance before the middle of May, 

 about which time they are occasionally seen in different localities, in flocks which vary in 

 number from five to fifteen, and almost invariably resort to heaths, barren pastures, fallow 



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