214 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



LAPWING. 



Vanellus vulgaris, Bechstein. 



Local Names — Pcicit, Tcicif, Green Plover. 



Kesident, and everywhere abundant, being probably 

 one of the commonest birds in the comity. Generally, 

 too, it is increasing, and only in such districts as that of 

 Clitheroe, for instance, where there is very much less 

 ploughing than there used to be, can it be stated as 

 fewer in numbers than in former years. In winter it 

 collects in considerable flocks, and these move about 

 from one place to another in search of food, hard weather 

 driving them to the sea-coast, whence they fly backwards 

 and forwards as the severity of the season varies. The 

 Lapwing is more a bird of the low grounds than the 

 moorlands, and the high fells, from which spring the 

 streams of the Brennand and Whitendale valleys in 

 Bowland, are the only localities where I have seen them 

 in numbers at any altitude. It is an early breeder, 

 hatches two broods in the season, and the bulk lay their 

 first three or four eggs in April, Ijut every year many 

 nests may be found in March, and in 1883 a confiding 

 pair near Clitheroe had made all preparations, and got 

 one egg safeW deposited, on the first of that month ; the 

 storm which came a week later, however, upset their 

 calculations, and made all the birds in the neighbourhood 

 flock together again for shelter. The earliest nest I 

 have heard of was reported to the Field of March 4th 

 1882, by Mr. H. J. Parke, who says that " on February 

 22nd, a Plover's nest was found in Brindle, near Preston, 

 containing three eggs, and on the 25tli the fourth egg 



