PLOVERS' EGGS 9 1 



and its season is short, and it is, therefore, nicely 

 situated in the calendar for adoption by fashion. 



The people who pay eighteen shillings a dozen 

 for plovers' eggs, if they pay more than the article 

 is worth, can at least natter themselves that twenty 

 to one they get the thing they pay for. When the 

 lapwing begins to lay it has few rivals in egg 

 production, and those few of its own kind. A 

 little later the tern's egg, which is a colourable 

 imitation, comes into the market to deceive the 

 inexpert. But nobody need be deceived who takes 

 the slightest trouble to learn the points which 

 distinguish the two. Both are about the same 

 size, and though the tern's is an extremely vari- 

 able egg in respect of colour, both present the 

 same general aspect of blotched black and brown 

 on olive-green. But the tern's egtg is of a perfectly 

 normal egg -shape, whereas that of the lapwing 

 is invariably more pointed at the thin end. The 

 eggs of all the members of the plover family 

 present the same peculiarity dunlin, sandpiper, 

 seapie, redshank ; but these others differ so 

 markedly in colour and size that they are not in 

 the competition. There are other less satisfactory 

 tests. When boiled the white of the tern's egg 

 becomes a white opaque, while that of the lapwing's 

 egg remains translucent. 



The lapwing holds a very distinct place in the 

 common stock of Nature knowledge. There are 

 few who ever come into touch with rurality who 

 do not know it as the typical bird producing eggs 

 with a " protective colouration," and fewer still 

 who do not know it as the stock instance of the 



