322 THE LAPWING. 



sort of tumbling flight, or by scrambling along the ground as if 

 wounded, when the young brood are in danger. Indeed, these 



latter birds, above any 

 others, have need of all the 

 art and cunning they can 

 muster to save their eggs. 

 which are eagerly sought 

 after in the places where 

 they are known to breed, 

 for the purpose of selling 

 them at a high price, as a 

 luxurious article of food. 

 The Lapwing. ^ the Orkney Islands, 



to the north of Scotland, they were, and possibly still are, 

 allowed to breed unmolested ; and their increase is consequently 

 very great. Probably they were once equally unmolested in 

 every other part of North Britain, which may account for a 

 curious Act of Parliament, said to have been passed many 

 years ago in Scotland, for encouragement to destroy them as 

 " ungrateful " birds ; " for that they came to Scotland to 

 breed, and then returned to England with their young to 

 feed the enemy."* Their food consists chiefly of grubs and 

 insects, easily procured in the low mossy grounds which they 

 prefer. 



Herodotus, an old Grecian historian, asserted that there was 

 a certain small bird which, as often as the crocodiles came on 

 shore from the river Mle, flew fearlessly within their jaws, 

 and relieved them of a peculiar kind of leeches which in- 

 fested their throats. He added, that although other birds 

 invariably avoided the crocodile, it never did this bird any 

 injury. So extraordinary a story was treated as fabulous by 

 all naturalists. It is, notwithstanding, strictly true ; M. 

 Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, an eminent and accurate French 

 naturalist, confirms the fact beyond a doubt. The bird 

 alluded to is the Egyptian Plover, which sometimes enters 

 the mouth of the crocodile, attracted thither not, according 

 to his account, by leeches, but by a small insect like a gnat, 

 * Letters from the 'North of Scotland, vol. i. 



