195

DOTTEREL.

Tuis is a very pretty bird, its colour being principally
various shades of brown and rust-colour. The length
is about nine inches. The bill is black; the eyes, dark,
large, and full; the forehead mottled with brown and
white; top of the head black; over each eye an arched
line of white passes to the hinder part of the ‘neck;
the cheeks and throat are white; the back and wings
light brown, inclining to olive, each feather margined
with pale rust-colour; the quills are brown; the fore
part of the neck is surrounded by a broad band of a
light olive-colour, bordered on the under side with white;
the breast above is pale dull orange, black on the middle,
and reddish white or yellowish lower down; the tail is
olive brown, black near the end, and tipped with white,
the outer feathers margined with white; the legs dark
olive-colour. It used formerly to be far more common
than it now is; for the cultivated districts are not so
much to its taste, as those which are more retired and
in the state of nature.

“Though the dotterel certainly breeds on the Grampians,
on Skiddaw, and other mountains in the northern portion
of our island, yet it must be considered rather in the
light of a visitor to our shores than a permanent resident.
Its great breeding-places are the high latitudes of Russia,
Lapland, and Northern Asia. It breeds also on the
bare plateaux of the Norwegian mountains, and in
Bohemia and Silesia, at an elevation of four thousand
eight hundred feet. The eggs are light olive brown,
blotched and spotted with black.