THE DUNLIN OH PURRE. 
295 
\ 
had nests. Twice, they rose at the same moment with golden 
plover, and alighted with tliem."^ About thirty pair, it is said, 
might be seen in a summer day in the bogs about Lough Conn, 
and on the banks of the river Moy, county of Mayo.t The dun- 
lin breeds at Portlough, county of Donegal. Of its nesting at 
the sea- side in this country as it does in Scotland I have no posi- 
tive evidence ; but when at Strangford Lough on the 21st June, 
1832, our boatmen stated that although the species did not breed 
on as many of the islands as formerly, they believed it still to do 
so on Ogilby and Black Islets, from their having seen numbers 
about them on the second day of that month. To both islets 
we went, but no dunlins appeared. One of the boatmen — whose 
word there was no reason to doubt — assured us that in the sum- 
mer of 1830 their nests were very numerous on Ogilby islet ; 
their eggs (he remarked) were laid on the gravel like those of the 
ring dotterel, and though large for a bird of its size, were smaller 
than those of the latter species. This boatman had, many years 
before, seen a few dunlins^ nests on Island Mahee in this lougH, 
a locality long since deserted by them. We found on this occa- 
sion single nests of the ring dotterel, oyster-catcher, and little 
tern, the eggs in all of which were laid on the bare gravel : several 
nests of the common and Arctic terns were also discovered, but 
they were composed either of Fuel or Zostera^ according to the 
islets on which they were situated. 
Mr. J. Poole has made the following good observations on this 
species : — “ Dunlins are by no means shy at night, when one may 
nearly walk up to them without their being alarmed. When 
scattered along the shore by the tide edge, they are constantly 
forming themselves into little knots of three or four in their 
* It is remarked by Mr. MacgiUivray, that “about the middle of April the piirres 
betake themselves to the moors in the northern parts of Scotland, and in the larger 
Hebrides, where they may be found scattered in the haunts selected by the golden 
plovers, with which they are so frequently found in company that they have obtained 
the name of plovers’ pages.” — Audubon’s Omit. Biog., vol. iii. p. 581. MacgiUivray 
gives in that work an interesting account of the species in Scotland, as Audubon does 
in America. 
t Mr. B. Ball. 
