11 



they are frequently to be found mixed with them in the poulterers' 

 shops. Their food consists of aquatic insects, worms, crustaceans, 

 and small molluscs. 



The next bird is the Lapwing, also called the Peewit ( Vanellus 

 vulgaris), which owes its first name to the slow flapping of its 

 rounded wings, while the latter is obviously devised from its 

 familiar cry. It is generally distributed throughout the British 

 Islands, and as a rule resident, though partial emigration from the 

 North takes place in severe weather. Its favourite resorts are 

 marshy pastures and moorlands, but its breeding grounds, even 

 when on the flats, are usually above the risk of inundations. 

 In England drainage and the increase of cultivation have tended 

 to diminish its numbers ; but in Scotland it is abundant, and is 

 on the increase in many parts of the North, as well as in the 

 Shetlands. In Ireland it is very common. This is the bird whose 

 eggs are so eagerly sought after during the month of April for the 

 breakfast table of those who can afford the luxury. It generally 

 lays four, but occasionally five eggs may be found in a nest. They 

 may be found during the latter part of March and on through 

 April, this being the principal month for laying, but they continue 

 throughout May and June, and no doubt this is owing to the first 

 hatch of eggs being taken for the market. I found one clutch of 

 eggs hard-set during the time I was in the neighbourhood, and 

 one clutch tliat had been deserted and had become very much 

 addled. It lays its eggs on the bare ground, or on what is hardly 

 worth calling a nest. The nest is very difficult to find, as the 

 female runs silently from it long before you are near it, and it 

 is the male bird which indulges in such frantic swoops and twirls 

 accompanied by noisy cries, though when the yoiing are hatched 

 both parents practise every artifice to allure man or dog from their 

 brood. On the approach of winter large flocks are formed which 

 break up in the following spring. Their food consists of worms, 

 slugs, and insects. 



The Thick-kneed Bustard, Stone Curlew, Norfolk Plover, 

 and Great Plover ( CEdicnemus scolopax). This bird frequents wide 

 downs, commons, and sheep-walks, also the shingly shores of Kent 

 and Sussex, where it makes its appearance in March or April iu 

 small flocks which are very shy, flying round in wide circles. If 

 disturbed from its repose it runs along very nimbly with the 

 head poked forwards and squats amongst loose stones and the 

 irregularities of broken ground, where the colour of the objects 

 above favours its concealment. In Hampshire, Norfolk, Sussex, 

 and Kent, it is tolerably common, but unfortunately the heavy 

 and continuous firing going on between Lydd and Rye has con- 

 siderably decreased its numbers in that neighbourhood. It is 

 a shy and watchful bird, and readily takes alarm by day, thia 



