LAPWING 239 
It is particularly vociferous during the breeding-season, 
and the piteous cry of péé-wit, or p2é-wée, is (when the bird 
is in a high state of excitement as to the safety of its young) 
often preceded by a round and full note which sounds like 
Ot-e, Ot-e, the accent being well thrown on the diphthong. 
Nest.—The Lapwing, in the breeding-season, resorts 
to rough pasturage, moor-lands, marshes, the shores and 
islands of lakes, as well as to the coast. I have found the 
eggs laid on dry, sandy soil, on stony ground, and on wet 
erass-covered slob-lands. 
The nest is a hollow, deeper in some cases than in 
others. It would appear that this bird usually makes a 
nest for itself rather than deposits its eggs in a ready-made 
depression (7.e., the foot-print of a cow or horse). This is 
all the more conclusive when we find the scrapings made 
by the beak or feet against the wall of the nest, represented 
by distinct radiating lines. I have noticed, however, that 
several nests which showed the scrapings most clearly 
did not contain eggs, being presumably ‘ hollows’ made by 
the male, as he scratches the ground, when indulging in 
his courting antics before his mate. I have further observed 
that some nests, deep and well-scraped, were not lined, 
either before or after the eggs were laid (Plate XVI., fig. 2). 
In other cases I have discovered the nest neatly lined with 
dry grass (Plate XVI., fig. 1). 
In localities where the birds are much disturbed by 
intruders and the eggs often plundered, it seems likely that 
many Lapwings may lay in adventitious hollows; under 
these circumstances I have found eggs deposited on the 
bare level soil. This species has many enemies besides 
man: Rooks, Hooded Crows, Jackdaws and Gulls purloin 
the eggs and carry them some distance from the nest, 
while rats break through the shells and rob the contents 
as the eggs he i situ.’ 
The eggs, four in number, are generally arranged so 
that their narrow ends point to the centre of the nest 
1 T have discovered and photographed a nest containing fragments 
of broken egg-shells apparently fresh and stained with yolk; on the 
soft sandy soil round the nest were the foot-prints of rats extending 
as a track for several yards’ distance. A little further on, I found 
another nest, containing two eggs, each of which had an elongated hole 
punched in its side from which the fresh contents were exuding. The 
eggs were probably broken by Jackdaws which were disturbed 
