364 BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
of its feathers for dressing artificial flies, and more lately 
robbed of its eggs on account of their rarity, has been 
exterminated at many of its breeding-haunts throughout 
Great Britain. It is undesirable, on account of the greed 
of the egg-collector, to specify any exact locahty, but the 
Dotterel still nests at altitudes of from two thousand five 
hundred to three thousand feet in Scotland and more rarely 
in the north of England. It breeds on the mountains and 
tundras of northern Europe and parts of Siberia, more rarely 
on certain highlands of central Europe. Its winter-quarters 
are in northern Africa, Palestine, Persia and Turkestan. 
The nest, a mere depression in the ground, is usually near 
the summit of the mountain, and contains but three eggs of 
a yellowish-olive colour, thickly blotched and spotted with 
blackish-brown. 
THE RINGED PLOVER. JSgialitis hiaticola (Linnaeus). 
Local names— Ring - Dotterel ; Five-toed Plover ; 
RiNGiE ; Sand-tripper. 
A very common resident species along the shores of the Solway, and in 
spring a few birds ascend our larger rivers to nest. 
In a letter dated April 17th, 1826, from Jardine HaU, Sir 
WiUiam Jardine writes to P. J. Selby : " The Ring Dot- 
terels have come to the River Annan preparing for their 
breeding quarters. Three or four pairs breed annually near 
me." Writing in 1842, Sir William says of this species :— 
" in our own vicinity they perform a short migration, breed- 
ing and retiring afterwards. On the banks of the Annan, 
fifteen or sixteen miles from the coast, one or two pairs 
annuaUy take up their station, seldom varying far from it. 
They arrive about the same time with the Common Sand- 
piper, and are sometimes later in retiring."* 
The Ringed Plover nests commonly along the shores of the 
* Nat. Lib., 1842, Vol. XII., p. 300. 
