300 The Scottish Naturalist. 



92. Vanellus cristatus, Temm. (Lapwing.) 



Though widely dispersed throughout the whole district, the 

 Lapwing, or Green Plover, is nowhere so abundant as formerly, 

 especially in the lower parts, where thirty or forty years ago, 

 in the autumn and the early winter months, it was to be seen 

 in the fields in large flocks of many hundreds. In the destruc- 

 tion of slugs, especially on the strong clay lands in the Carse 

 of Gowrie and Lower Strathearn, their presence was most 

 beneficial, — so much so, that since their great diminution, I 

 have known, in the late wet seasons, whole fields of autumn- 

 wheat (especially after a crop of beans) so utterly destroyed by 

 the slug, that they have had to be resown with some other 

 grain in the following spring \ and this I attribute entirely to 

 the absence of the Peesweep, or Toughet — the common name 

 given to it by the Carse natives, and only to be pronounced 

 by one well versed in the old vernacular. The steady decrease 

 of these birds can be traced, I think, chiefly to three causes : 

 the presence of punt-gunners on the Tay of late years, who 

 shoot them down in large numbers on the mud-banks at low 

 water, to supply the various markets during the open season ; 

 while, in the close time, their eggs are collected with impunity, 

 and if got into the London market sufficiently early, are sure 

 to secure a large price ; besides which, in these days of game- 

 rearing, many a Plover's ^gg goes up to the London dealers in 

 exchange for those of Partridges and Pheasants. No wonder, then, 

 that the poor Lapwing gets every year scarcer and scarcer. In 

 addition to this, owing to drainage and improvement in farm- 

 ing, especially in stiff lands, the ploughed fields are able to be 

 worked much earlier in the season than formerly, and many a 

 sitting of eggs, if not otherwise discovered and robbed, are either 

 harrowed up and broken, or ruthlessly crushed by the roller 

 passing over them ; whereas in olden times these would have 

 been safe, and the young birds hatched and able to take care 

 of themselves by the time farming operations commenced ; also, in 

 these days of high farming, there is now little or no fallow land 

 to be seen in the country, once the great haunt of the J^eewit in 

 the breeding season. 



93. Charadrius pluvialis, Linn. (Golden Plover.) 



A great deal that has been said in regard to the causes of 

 the scarcity of the Lapwing may be repeated in the case of the 



