BIRDS 355 



eggs of the Dotterel, through the shepherds, and I have been told 

 that a few have been found or said to be found every year. At 

 the same time I have little doubt that the eggs of other birds 

 are now and then sold to the ignorant for those of the Dottrel ; 

 indeed, I have seen some eggs of the Common Snipe so 

 extremely like the Dottrels that it was with difficulty they 

 could be distinguished.' A loose note of Heysham, dated 

 October 22, 1850, contains this entry: 'Mr. Dickinson this day 

 showed me two eggs of this bird (Dotterel) which he had found 

 on the 12th of August 1846, not far from Helvellyn. One egg- 

 came to grief, so only two were retained.' 



Mr. J. W. Harris, who remembers the discovery of the first 

 Dotterel eggs, tells me that in his opinion the Dotterel has 

 always been a scarce breeding species, and that he had to travel 

 very long distances to fall in with them at all. Captain 

 Johnson, a friend and contemporary of Yarrell, remarked that 

 the Dotterel was ' a rare bird ' even in his younger days, to be 

 met with on the flat top of Crossfell and similar situations on 

 migration. A man named Watson, of Little Salkeld, who had 

 paid a good deal of attention to Crossfell birds, assured me that 

 prior to 1870 a few Dotterel appeared in his neighbourhood 

 nearly every year, and some of them were generally secured for 

 fly feathers. ' Folk said they went up to the fells to breed, but 

 he thought they must go on to breed elsewhere, because he had 

 only heard of one nest of the bird having been found in his 

 lifetime.' The same kind of evidence might be adduced from 

 the lips of many other witnesses, since I have interviewed all 

 the likeliest men to give accurate information. Mr. F. Nichol- 

 son, who contributed an account of this species to the Birds of 

 Cumberland, at that time wrote : ' During the last thirty years, 

 judging from my own observations, the species seems to have 

 been gradually disappearing from the district, until in this year 

 (1885) I only saw three pairs during several days spent in 

 visiting all the most likely ground.' 



In 1887 the same brother Ibis wrote to me: 'I knew of 



three pairs of Dotterels breeding in Cumberland this year, 



which I hope all reared their young.' 1 The decrease in the 



Another member of the B.O.U., Mr. H. E. Rawson, who possesses an 



