THE GOLDEN PLOVER. 
93 
sporting in the latter half of October 1849, on the high moun- 
tains about Meggarnie Castle, Perthshire, we occasionally met with 
flocks of golden plover, and killed some ; but their numbers were 
so small, compared with those in the Belfast mountains at the same 
period of the year, that I looked upon them merely as birds bred 
in the district. When grouse-shooting over the very extensive 
moor of Aberardser in Inverness-shire, possessing every variety of 
ground, I was surprised never to meet with the golden plover 
during the month of September 1842. A flock, however, was seen 
by one of our party about the 20th of the month. I saw the 
species commonly in Islay during January 1849, and was told 
that numbers breed there. 
The third volume of the ^ Ornithological Biography ^ contains 
a very interesting account of the American and, at the same time, 
of the Scottish golden plover, from the respective observations of 
Audubon and Macgillivray. These birds, described there as iden- 
tical, are now generally considered by ornithologists to be distinct 
species. 
THE HOTTEBEL. 
Charadrius morinellus, Linn. 
Is very rarely met with in this island ; 
Though a regular summer visitant to Great Britain; breeding 
annually on the lofty mountain summits about the English lakes 
and in different parts of Scotland. In England, however, it 
does not seem to go in any numbers far to the westward * * * 
has not been seen more than once or twice in Cornwall, and only 
occasionally in Devonshire and Dorsetshire.* 
The earliest notice of the occurrence of the dotterel in Ireland 
appeared in the Zoological Proceedings for 1834, where I men- 
tioned one which had been shot on a high hill at Einnebrogue, 
near Downpatrick, a few years previously (it was believed in the 
Canutus) and dunlin. In a wet autumnal day (but never in winter), lie has fre- 
quently driven small flocks of tlie latter species before bim, until they, united, 
formed a flock which he thought worthy to receive his charge. 
* YarreU, B.B. vol. ii. p. 455, 2nd edit. 
