336 PLOVER. 



appear towards the end of May, on that district of Aberdeenshire, 

 called Braemor, being the most elevated part of the country, where 

 they hatch their young, on dry mossy ground, near to, and on 

 the very summits of the highest parts; sometimes in the little tufts 

 of short heather, or moss, which is to be found in those elevated 

 grounds, and in so exposed a situation : they take so little trouble 

 to form their nest, that were it not by the eggs, no one could sup- 

 pose there was one. The hen sits three weeks, and the young make 

 their appearance about the middle of July : they rarely lay above 

 three eggs, and generally bring forward as many young; towards 

 the end of October they gather into large flocks, and sometimes 

 hundreds may be seen together, for a very considerable number breed 

 in the district above mentioned : however, their assembling in large 

 flocks at the above season is no proof of their leaving the country 

 before winter; as Grouse do the same, which are constant inhabitants ; 

 and our informant once fell in with a small flock of about a dozen, 

 at the foot of the highest mountain of that country, about the end 

 of February, or beginning of March, the ground having been for 

 many weeks deeply covered with snow. Three of these were shot in 

 very good condition, though not so fat as those he used to kill in 

 August and September. As to their breeding place it is always at 

 an elevation from 1500 to 2000 i'eet above the level of the sea : and 

 Dr. Hey sham informed me, that ten or twelve were shot on the top 

 of Skiddaw, in Cumberland,* in the month of June. 



They are tame, and silly birds, even to a proverb, and we are 

 told that formerly they were taken at night time, by candle light; 

 the Fowler knowing where to And them, put himself into various 

 gestures imitative of those of the birds, as they frequently have the 

 habit of stretching out first one wing and then another, and the 

 attention of the birds being taken up thereby, a net was easily drawn 

 over them ; though many people have thought, that this mode of 

 acting did not conduce to the decoying of the birds into the net, any 



* Skiddaw is 1100 yards perpendicular from the Broadwater with two heads. 



