106 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 
seagon.”? These, however, by no means consisted only 
of lapwing’s eggs, as those of redshanks, reeves, snipes, 
and black terns were indiscriminately gathered, and too 
often, as Mr. Lubbock laments, without leaving a single 
egg in the nest to encourage the birds to keep on 
laying. In the Hockwold and Feltwell fens, as Mr. Alfred 
Newton informs me the eggs of “starns” (black terns, 
Sterna fissipes) were taken in former times to place in 
the lapwings’ nests, and the latter would “lay to” 
them. The great demand, however, for plovers’ eggs, 
even when formerly abundant, is best shown by the 
prices realised ;* and at threepence and fourpence a piece 
one can scarcely wonder at the over zeal of the gatherers. 
In 1845, Mr. Lubbock speaks of eightpence each 
being given for the earliest, and that the price then 
rarely fell below three shillings a dozen; yet in the 
present year, when scarcely a dozen or two were sent 
to the Norwich market, they could be purchased at 
four shillings. In their present scarcity, however, the 
eges of the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus) locally 
termed “ peewits” (which no doubt aids the deception) 
are not unfrequently sold for the rarer lapwings’; 
and it is not a little difficult to convince those who 
have thus been gulled, that plovers’ eggs, in a market- 
able sense, mean any kinds at all approaching them 
in size, shape, or colour. As ground-breeders also, 
the lapwings have other enemies than man; _ but 
the male bird exhibits great courage in defence of its 
nest, as graphically described by Mr. Salmon in the 
following passage from his Thetford notes :—“ Stationed 
on a slight eminence in its vicinity, he no sooner espies 
* According to Pennant in 1776 the London poulterers supplied 
these eggs at three shillings a dozen, and in 1812 Daniel, in his 
“Rural Sports,” gives four shillings a dozen as the price, then, in 
the London markets. 
