BIRDS. 



297 



circumstances do occur is well known to many ornithologists of experience. 

 I desire to instance one such only as an example — see the footnote below.] ^ 



>Egialitis hiaticula (L.). Ringed Plover. 



Abundant. Resident. Breeds. 



The favourite haunts of the Ringed Plover — or "Ringed Dot- 

 terel" — are the sandy and gravelly links and shores of the sea- 

 board ; but it is also quite a representative species inland along the 

 gravelly courses of the larger rivers, like the Tay, and of the larger 

 lochs like Loch Tay, and the gravelly beaches of Lochs Ericht, 

 Rannoch, and many others of the sheets of water which are found 

 all over the area. Though they are not so abundant at these more 

 inland localities, still they are quite seemingly at home there, and 

 regular in their annual visitations in the breeding season. It 

 becomes, however, rarer the further inland it penetrates, and thus 

 upon the far western shores of Loch Luydon and Loch Baa it seems 

 to be restricted to only a very few pairs — i.e, so far as I have been 

 able to ascertain both from personal observation and the accounts 

 of those who are acquainted with the bird. 



These remarks are intended to apply not only to the exact 

 places mentioned, but in a more general sense to localities far to the 

 west of the area, and upon the western slopes and districts of the 

 west mainland. At this point readers who desire to get really 

 useful ideas of distribution in east and west, and again in the isles, 

 should not be satisfied with the book which treats of only one such 

 restricted area. 



The negative evidence that it is not included in the Rev. Mr. 

 M'Connochie's list of the birds observed around Guthrie, appears to 

 me quite worthy of notice here. 



^ I once received a specimen of Larus hundieni from Dundee, along with a number 

 of other Gulls shot locally, and sent me for inspection. But in this case inquiry 

 revealed that the specimen of Larus kumlieni had been sent home in a wlialer, though 

 most of the others had been killed locally ! This specimen I recorded in the Proceedings 

 of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh. I gave it afterwards to my friend Mr. 

 Howard Saunders ; and, after he finished his volume upon the Laridce of the British 

 Museum Catalogue of Birds, it passed into the British Museum Collections. I believe 

 it proved to be the first recorded specimen which had come home from the Greenland 

 seas. As 1 have said, I only instance it here to illustrate how such mistakes may so 

 easily take place. (But I am under the impression that a second one has since been 

 obtained by one of the Greenland whalers, which came from the same source and passed 

 through my hands ; but without again seeing the specimen I cannot record it, though I 

 thought so at the time. Mj- identification of the first one was correct, and was 

 accepted at once by Mr. Howard Saunders. ) 



