LITTLE RING DOTTEREL. 187 



during the night. During this time of the year they are 

 very noisy on the banks of rivers and lakes, uttering their 

 call-note, running and flying about incessantly. 



The locality generally preferred is the bank of a river, 

 lake, inland sea, or large pond, by far more unfrequently 

 the sea-coast, differing in this respect greatly from the 

 fore£oino'. 



Sandy and gravelly soils suit its habits best, and more 

 particularly the banks of running streams, such as the Elbe, 

 Mulde and Saale in Germany, where the ground is flat, 

 and hardly covered by vegetation, whether near or distant 

 from towns or villages, and in such spots it annually breeds. 



The busy time for this pretty Little Dotterel is morn- 

 ing, evening, and the greater part of the night ; in conse- 

 quence of which it roosts during the day on the ground, 

 either standing by the water-side or squatting very closely, 

 and may thus very easily be approached with reasonable 

 caution. 



The habits of the Little Ring Dotterel are very much 

 the same as those of the foregoing species, and this simi- 

 larity adds consequently greatly to the chance of their being 

 undistinguished from one another by the general observer ; 

 it runs not quite so fast ; its flight is also quick, and 

 performed in the same manner as that of the charadrius 

 hiaticula. When the present species is endangered by the 

 approach of man, it frequently takes wing, and alights upon 

 some floating weed, where it remains till the intruder is 

 distanced : this latter action is peculiar to this species. 



During the breeding-season this bird is sociable, not only 

 towards its own species, by having several broods in the 

 same locality, but also towards others of the shore birds, 

 such as terns, that frequent inland shores during that 

 time. 



