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THE COMMON LAPWING 



Vanellut cristatus, MEYER. 

 PLATE XXV. 



Tringa vanellus, Linn, &c. Vanellus cristatus, Flem. 

 <J-c. Vanneau huppe, Temm The Common Green OP 

 Crested Lapwing of British authors. 



THIS beautiful and lively bird is abundant in 

 suitable localities over the whole of the British 

 Islands, though the inroads of cultivation are 

 trenching 1 rapidly on some of its favourite haunts. 

 The improvements which have been made on lands 

 that bore a subalpine character, and on that lower 

 wet pasture, which, till lately, was not thought 

 worthy of cultivation, and remained untouched by 

 the plough, have much curtailed them. We have, 

 at this moment, a wide range of land, once favourite 

 haunts of the Pewit and Curlew, where few are 

 now to be found ; and on one farm, not exceeding a 

 hundred acres in extent, forty or fifty pairs of Pewits 

 might have been seen breeding yearly, whereas, at 

 present, a single pair could not be shot upon it. 

 This, in one sense, may give some satisfaction in 

 the improvement which has taken place, and the 



