102 APRIL. 



mimicry. A gentleman told me, that one he kept, 

 having stolen various articles, was watched by him 

 narrowly ; and at length was seen by him busy in 

 the garden gathering pebbles, and with much solem- 

 'riity and a 'Studied air dropping them into a hole 

 about eighteen inches deep, made to receive a line- 

 'jpOsti ' Affer dropping each stone, it cried "carack!" 

 triumphantly, and set off for another. Making him- 

 self sure that he had found the objects of his search, 

 the gentleman went to the place and found in the 

 hole a poor toad which the magpie was stoning for 

 his amusement. 



One of the most interesting birds is the lapwing. 

 Its plaintive cry belongs to solitary places. On the 

 barren pasture, or bare fallow, it lays its eggs in a 

 little hollow in the naked earth. They are of a 

 pale, dull ochre colour, darkly spotted, large, very 

 broad at one end, and very narrow at the other. 

 The curious appearance of these birds, the anxiety 

 of their cries as they wheel about you, their strata- 

 gems to decoy you from their nests, or young ones, 

 neither of which are readily found, interest you 

 strongly in their favour. The instinct of their 

 young is wonderful. Like those of the partridge, 

 they have scarcely emerged from the shell when 

 they begin to run from the nest, and by squandering 

 themselves in the fallow, or the turf of the pasture, 

 are not so readily observed as if they lay in a 

 group. The moment they hear the cry of alarm of 

 their parents in the air, they lie close to the ground, 

 and may easily be mistaken for little brown lumps 



