LAPWING 505 
thousands or ten-thousands ; and worse than this, the bird, wary 
and wild at other times of the year, in the breeding-season becomes 
easily approachable, and is (or used to be) shot down in enormous 
numbers to be sold in the markets for “Golden Plover.” Its grow- 
ing scarcity as a species was consequently very perceptible in this 
country until an Act of Parliament in 1872 frightened people into 
letting it alone, when its numbers immediately increased, to the mani- 
fest advantage of many classes of the community—those who would 
eat its eggs, those who would eat its flesh (at the right time of year), 
as well as the agriculturists whose lands it frequented, for it is ad- 
mitted on all hands that nobird is more completely the farmer’s friend. 
What seems to be the secret of the Lapwing holding its position in 
spite of slaughter and rapine is the adaptability of its nature to 
various kinds of localities. It will find sustenance for itself and 
its progeny equally on the driest soils as on the fattest pastures ; 
upland and fen, arable and moorland, are alike to it, provided only 
the ground be open enough. The wailing cry’ and the frantic 
gestures of the cock-bird in the breeding-season will tell any 
passer-by that a nest or brood is near; but, unless he knows how 
to look for it, little save mere chance will enable him to find it. 
Yet by practice those who are acquainted with the bird’s habits 
will accurately mark the spot whence the hen silently rises from 
her treasure, and, disregarding the behaviour of the cock, which is 
intended to delude the intruder, will walk straight to one nest 
after another as knowing beforehand the exact position of each. 
In many cases they will know, from the hen’s behaviour, the number 
of eggs they will find, and whether she has begun to sit. The nest 
is a slight hollow in the ground, wonderfully inconspicuous even 
a little similarity of shell to the latter, and a difference of flavour only to be 
detected by a fine palate. It is estimated that 800,000 Lapwings’ eggs are yearly 
sent to England from the one province of Friesland in Holland (see Ornith. 
Centralbl. 1877, p. 108). 
1 This sounds like pee-weet, with some variety of intonation. Hence the 
names Peewit, Peaseweep, and Teuchit, commonly applied in some parts of 
Britain to this bird,—though the first is that by which one of the smaller Gulls, 
Larus ridibundus, is known in some of the districts it frequents. In Sweden Vipa, 
in Germany Kiebitz, in Holland Kiewiet, and in France Dixhwit, are names of the 
Lapwing, given to it from its usual cry. Other English names are Green Plover 
and Horn-pie—the latter from its long hornlike crest and pied plumage. The 
Lapwing’s conspicuous crest seems to have been the cause of a common blunder 
among our writers of the Middle Ages, who translated the Latin word Upupa, 
properly Hooron, by Lapwing, as being the crested bird with which they were 
best acquainted. In like manner other writers of the same or an earlier period 
Latinized Lapwing by “grettides (plural), and rendered that again into English 
as Egrets—the tuft of feathers misleading them also. A common Italian name 
is Pavoncella (Little Peahen), and that has led to some amusing mistakes. The 
word Vanellus is said to be from vannus, the fan used for winnowing corn, and 
refers to the audible beating of the bird’s wings. 
