LAPV.'ING OR GREEN PLOVER. 1 99 



As a check to pests the Lapwing is our most useful bird, for 

 though it does not discriminate between harmful and beneficial 

 insects and worms, examination of a number of stomachs shows 

 that it devours more wireworms, tipulid and lepidopterous 

 larvae, and snails than useful carnivorous insects and worms, 

 and there is no evidence that it ever attacks crops. It is 

 nominally protected and the gathering of " plovers' eggs " 

 regulated, but nothing is done to enforce the law. The stock 

 of summer birds is large, but it should be larger. In flight 

 the broad round wings flap slowly ; the bird moves fast, but 

 without the dash of the sharp -v/inged plovers ; Lapwings flying 

 high flicker black and white. They can fly high when migrat- 

 ing ; one airman ran into a flock at 6500 feet. Such flights, 

 at a height above range of vision, detract from the value of 

 theories founded on visible migration, when the birds are often 

 forced to low altitudes by adverse winds or other untoward 

 conditions. The birds travel, when changing ground, straight, 

 but without the ordered formation of many waders ; lines are 

 rare, and leaders frequently alter. Towards dusk in autumn 

 and winter the flocks indulge in aerial exercise, wheeling and 

 changing direction, as they rise and " tremble up to cloud." 

 Their evolutions, though concerted, are without the quick turns 

 and swaying swoops of sharp-winged waders. The air mastery 

 of the Lapwing is seen in its nuptial flight. 



The ordinary call is a wheezy pee-wee, from which the bird 

 gets the name " Peewit," with many local variants, but in 

 February or early March both note and actions change. 

 Before the winter flocks have dispersed, the males begin their 

 erratic aerial dances, accompanied by a long, undulating, wild, 

 but musical whistle, utterly impossible to put into words ; the 

 bird rises almost heavily, sweeps round in a wide circle, 

 suddenly dashes upward, and calls. As suddenly it hurtles 

 earthward, turning and twisting, throwing its broad wings any- 

 where, but never losing control, and often with the last excited 



