517 



n 



this bird to the ground that it affects, it is a difficult matter to watch the Dotterel to its nest, 

 and when on its eggs a person might walk within a few feet of it without seeing it. Fortunately 

 for this decreasing species, the lofty mountain-tops which are its exclusive breeding-haunts in 

 Scotland, are not likely to be often visited by shepherds or keepers during the summer months ; 

 there is no herbage to attract the sheep ; and, with the exception of the wandering foxhunter, no 

 person is likely to invade the precincts of the Dotterel's nesting-ground until the Ptarmigan- and 

 Blue-Hare shooters go up in the autumn. 



" It is a sad fact that the breeding-haunts of this species have greatly decreased in Scotland 

 during the last quarter of a century, owing to the indiscriminate slaughter of these beautiful 

 and unwary birds, when they first land on our shores in the month of May, prior to their pro- 

 ceeding to the mountains. Macgillivray mentions five Scottish counties in which the Dotterel 

 bred regularly in his days, viz. Forfar, Kincardine, Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray; and Mr. "W. 

 Dunbar and the late Mr. St. John have marked this bird as breeding regularly in Sutherland and 

 Caithness. My friend Mr. Harvie-Brown, who passed three breeding-seasons in succession in 

 Sutherland, the last being 1869, informs me that he never met with the Dotterel in that county, 

 nor could he, after the most diligent inquiry, gain any satisfactory information that the bird now 

 bred there, though twenty-five years ago it was by no means an uncommon occurrence ; and I 

 think that it is doubtful if more than a dozen pairs are now to be found nesting in the whole of 

 Scotland." Captain Feilden further calls my attention to some notes read at the sixth meeting 

 of the Natural-History Society of Glasgow in February 1872, by Mr. John Bateson, respecting 

 the breeding of the Dotterel in Ross-shire, from which it appears that it breeds on two separate 

 hills in the west, and also on Ben Wyvis. 



Mr. Collett, in a letter just to hand, informs me that in Norway it breeds in the mountain 

 plateaux here and there up nearly as high as the line of eternal snow, chiefly affecting localities 

 where the ground is flat and stones are scattered about. The eggs, three in number, are placed 

 on a small heap of Cladonice ; and the old bird will not leave her nest until almost trodden on, 

 when she will run off, and immediately begins to feign lameness, in order to entice away the 

 intruder. 



I possess a tolerably large series of the eggs of this species, obtained in Norway and Lapland, 

 which are light stone-buff or dull buff, with a greenish tinge (the latter rarer than the former), 

 and are very distinctly blotched with large black surface-marks; and there are in some few 

 specimens a very few underlying dark purplish shell-markings. In one or two the larger end is 

 so closely blotched as to nearly hide the ground-colour, but the rest of the egg is less marked 

 with dark colour. In size those in my collection vary from If ^ by 1^ to lf-^ by 1^ inch. 



Insects of various kinds and their larvae appear to constitute the food of this bird; and, 

 referring to specimens shot by him, Mr. R. Collett writes to me as follows: — " In the stomachs of 

 individuals shot in June 1871 on the Dovre, I found coleoptera (chiefly of the genus Bembidium), 

 larvae of Elateres, Lumbrici, and fine gravel; in May 1874 I examined some individuals on the 

 same place, and found in the stomachs several leaves (of Salix), pieces of straw, insects of 

 different kinds and their larvae, and gravel." 



Mr. Meves has sent to me a copy of some notes communicated to him by Knoblock, of 

 Muoniovaara, a very trustworthy collector, from which I translate the following particulars: — 



