350 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



for making artificial flies.' 1 The author of Observations chiefly 

 Lithological tells us that in 1803 he found the Dotterel repre- 

 sented in Hutton's Museum at Keswick. He says further : ' A 

 bird very much famed among epicures, the dotterel is to be seen 

 occasionally on Skiddaw and the adjacent country; they are 

 only there two months in the year, July and August, when 

 they come into these parts merely to breed. The rest of the 

 year they spend in Lincolnshire and other flat countries. 

 Two of the species of Charadrius, the Morinellus and the 

 Hiaticula, my guide informed me, congregate together, as if 

 they belonged to the same species. The accurate Bewick, 

 whose untimely death [he was alive and well] can never be 

 too sufficiently regretted, gives a very different account of these 

 birds. 2 I saw no dotterels at the time I was on Skiddaw, but 

 my guide told me the week before he saw twenty brace there 

 at a time together. The bird itself when stripped of its plumage 

 sells only for fourpence ; but its feathers at Keswick are always 

 worth sixpence, for the purpose of making artificial flies for the 

 numerous fishermen who live in the neighbourhood.' Dr. 

 Heysham only alluded to the Dotterel in a few lines in his 

 catalogue of Cumberland animals, stating that ten or twelve had 

 been shot in June 1784, ' upon Skiddaw, where they breed; on 

 the 18th of May 178G I had two females sent from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Appleby. On dissection, I found the eggs very small, 

 so that it is probable they do not lay until June.' It is difficult 

 to understand why the doctor suppressed the following note, 

 which T. C. Heysham quoted many years later [in 1830] from 

 his father's ' MS.' : ' Some time last summer a nest of the 

 Dotterel was found on Skiddaw; the old one was killed, and 

 the eggs brought away which were three or four in number. 

 I saw three of them [i.e. a full clutch] ; they are somewhat 

 larger than a Magpie's egg ; the ground is a dirty clay-colour 

 marked with large irregular black spots. February 14, 1785.' 

 Dr. Heysham was without doubt the first scientific naturalist 

 to examine eggs of the Dotterel taken in England, authenticated, 



1 A Fortnight's liamble to the Lakes (1795), by Joseph Budworth, 

 pp. 222, 223. 

 8 Thomas Bewick ■ gently sighed away his last breath ' on Nov. 8, 1828. 



