BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 363 
Dotterel Plover on the Scaur hiUs some years ago. Whether 
this was the genuine Dotterel or only the Dunhn, it is im- 
possible to state, as the birds have not been observed for the 
last few years, though I have searched the hiHs far and wide."* 
In 1886 William Hastings, the taxidermist, told Mr. R. 
Service that he had only once received a Dotterel for preserva- 
tion, and that the specimen came from Holywood. In an 
interview with the Sanquhar gamekeepers in 1908, 1 gathered 
that the Dotterel had unquestionably occurred in the 
locahty, within the last three years on three different 
occasions. On each of these, single birds only were seen, at 
altitudes of from five hundred to one thousand five hundred 
feet ; and in the interest of the birds themselves I refrain 
from giving full particulars. In his paper on " The 
Waders of Solway," Mr. R. Service recorded in 1905 : " At 
one time there were a few pairs on the Moffat range, but 
whether they are still there in the breeding season I am 
without any recent information, Mr. J. Bartholomew, to 
whom I am indebted for so much information from that 
locahty, writes me in 1908 that this species is " not known 
apparently in Moffat." In his paper, above quoted, Mr. 
Service states that the eggs of the Dotterel have been 
taken in Kirkcudbrightshire on the mountains above Loch 
Dungeon, and goes on to say: ''On their northward 
migration in spring, flocks were often seen on the ploughed 
fields some thirty to forty years ago. These are not observed 
now-a-days, and for the last ten years at least I have neither 
heard of nor seen any on the southward journey."J 
Trips of Dotterel may yet again be seen, and may possibly 
revisit their former nesting-haunts in the county, if, as is 
beheved to be the case, the species farther north is extending 
its breeding-range, and it is to be hoped that they may 
receive the benefit of strict protection at all hands. 
This bird, formerly persecuted on account of the value 
* Hist. Sanquhar, p. 31. 
t Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasg., 1905, Vol. VIII., p. 47. 
t Loc. cit. 
