THE LAPWING. 319 



that they frequent the salt marshes and the lands border- 

 ing the sea, and often on the beach, following the reced- 

 ing waves, to pick up the various animal substances. In 

 the winter months flocks of Lapwings from the sea coast 

 are frequently seen crossing over the inland tracts of 

 country. These flocks often foretell a coming snowstorm, 

 before which the birds are retiring to grounds open and 

 more tenable. Yet once the storm abated, the birds 

 again seek the coast, to reap the endless harvests of the 

 ocean, for there is not a tide but what spreads the sands 

 with animal matter in abundance, there is not a wave 

 that breaks upon the shore but what comes laden with 

 food in plenty for them. 



We have yet to learn why the Lapwings leave the 

 sea coasts in spring, to spread over the inland moors and 

 pastures. Food can scarcely be considered as the 

 primary cause, for the Ringed Plover and many 

 other shore birds, apparently differing in few of their 

 requirements from the Lapwing, remain on the sandy 

 shores, and rear their young a stone's throw from the 

 waters of the deep. Depend upon it, when migration 

 and its causes are studied more carefully, many of the 

 actions of the feathered tribes, to us at present unaccount- 

 able and mysterious, will become plain, and exhibit 

 facts which we are now little or not at all aware of. 



