92 ODD HOURS WITH NATURE 



bird which, by devious arts, decoys the intruder 

 from eggs and young. Those who know nothing 

 more about it know these things. Yet, strangely 

 enough, both statements may be, and have been, 

 disputed. Though usually described as a bird 

 of the moor and natural pasture land, the lapwing 

 has really a much wider range. The most pro- 

 ductive nesting-place I ever knew was a stretch 

 of low-lying links-land, on which grass and short 

 bell -heather held about equal space, and which 

 was broken up with ramifying channels filled at 

 high tide with the water from an estuary. But 

 the peewit nests on all sorts of permanent pasture 

 where the grass is not long ; and cultivated fields, 

 particularly of winter-sown wheat, serve its pur- 

 pose perhaps better than any other kind of ground. 

 Wherever it lays the eggs are ( always easily found, 

 partly because the bird never fails to call atten- 

 tion, in the most clamorous fashion, to the fact 

 that they are there, and partly because the formal 

 cross in which they are arranged is, despite the 

 colouration, conspicuous. The protective coloura- 

 tion is undeniable. Seen on a piece of heathy 

 pasture, their olive -greens, with brown and black 

 blotchings, stand as a perfect mingling of the 

 colours of the environment. But they fail to pro- 

 tect, at any rate, from human eyes. In some 

 related birds the protection is incomparably more 

 effective. The -oyster -catcher or seapie, for 

 instance, makes its nest among the large gravel 

 spreads of river-beds or among the pebbles of 

 old beaches which abound on some parts of the 

 coast, separated by newer deposits from the sea. 



