LAPWING. O 



not sitting yet, or the cock-bird would have stayed longer ; and she begins to sit 

 when the third egg is laid, though four is her full number. 



" Let us wait here, though a drizzle has come on, greying the trees and 

 distant sandhills, for the birds are sure to be back soon now ; for a peewit never 

 leaves her eggs exposed to the wet. She always covers them, or more usually 

 returns at all hazards and sits upon them. But hist ! there she comes across the 

 wall and flies doAvn to the marsli. See her. She is looking intently. 'All's 

 well,' she thinks. See her running along for a few yards — for peewits seldom 

 walk, but run, after appearing to pick up something as they go. Then she stops 

 again, and listens, and on she goes right on to the nest by that heap near the dike. 

 Soon you can scarcely see her with the naked eye. And yet these brave birds sit 

 upon the lonely marshes through the night-watches, regardless of the cruel and 

 fierce rats and ruthless weasels and stoats that are breeding near by, and who 

 often rob their eggs and young, if they do not eat the mother herself. And yet 

 the birds sit on through darkness unprotected, merely obeying an instinct stronger 

 than fear. Having made our mark, after the manner of the fenmen, we run up 

 and flush her. She rises again, and flies lapping off", silent as death, striking 

 away over the water again ; and after a little search we find the nest, lined with 

 rush and broad-leaved grass, upon which lie two eggs, heavy and sweet and fresh, 

 as the water-test in the nearest dike proves. And we will leave them, for they 

 are not so good to eat as a fresh hen's egg, and chance the old Kentish crows 

 sucking them, as they often do, as well as eating the young peewits when they 

 can catch them. But see, here comes the excited cock again, tumbling about, 

 and thrashing the air with his wings, and, till he is about to fly up, there he goes 

 into the open, twisting, and turning, and shrieking his dull refrain, ' Three 

 bullocks a week — week arter week — week« arter week.' 



" And so these birds lay on, if robbed, unto their clutches of four eggs each, 

 or a round dozen per bird, laying as late as harvest-time ; for they must have 

 a young brood if possible. But they leave the place their early nests are 

 robbed in, and go moving from marsh to marsh at each new loss of embryo ; 

 and so regular is this retirement before the eggers, that the experienced say, 

 ' Ah ! well, they'll be inter our marsh next, directly they're robbed over yonder.' 

 But this egging has sadly thinned their numbers ; and instead of being able to 

 find two dozen nests of a morning, as was formerly common, we may be lucky 

 to find one in many a marsh." 



Mr. F. S. Mitchell writes as follows, with reference to the breeding of the 

 Lapwing in Lancashire * : — " It is an early breeder, hatches two broods in the 



* ' Birds of Lancashire,' pp. 179, 180. 



