THE LAPWING. 189 
apt to suffer through late frosts and snows, which always suspend 
further nesting operations. Then, too, a great many are 
destroyed when preparing the fallow fields for crop. 
Large tides also occasionally account for the destruction of 
not a few when the nesting ground is submerged. Notwith- 
standing that, however, the lapwings always come back and nest 
close to the sea. In stating that fact, I can recall an occasion 
when a pair of landrails nested on marshy ground covered with 
rushes. I was unable to find the eggs, but after a very stormy 
evening, when the place was swept by a heavy tide, I came across 
several on the tide mark. As far as I can recollect, the landrails 
never again returned to breed after that trying experience. 
Then, again, the eggs are collected up to a certain time in 
each year as a table delicacy, after which the birds are allowed 
to hatch them. 
Many a lonely moor would be dismal indeed if it were not 
brightened up during the breeding season by the picturesque 
figure of the lapwing. Its wild notes and tumbling flight seem 
to add a charm to the solemn grandeur surrounding it, which is 
greatly increased if the day be a little stormy. 
The lapwing is often found breeding in company with the 
redshank, and on several occasions I have found the nests of the 
two birds within a few yards of each other. There thus appears 
to be a kind of mutual understanding between them, the redshank 
ably performing the duties of a sentinel, which it does to per- 
fection with its shrill, piping notes on the slightest approach of 
danger, and the lapwing undertaking the duties of a policeman 
by driving all bird robbers from the nesting ground. According 
to Mr Howard Saunders, “ it is the male which indulges in such 
frantic swoops and twirls, accompanied by noisy cries, though 
when the young are hatched both parents practise every artifice 
to allure man or dog from their broods.’’ 
How pretty it is to watch the movements of the lapwing 
during the colder months! Perhaps a large flock, in close 
' formation, may be seen flying in a certain direction and then 
suddenly change their minds. The close formation is broken 
up and a turning movement is performed, which makes the 
birds appear in a long, struggling line directing their course 
to quite a different destination. In this manner they go another 
short distance, the large flock being in the interval often split 
