THE LAPWING OR PEEWIT 



grass or plants, the enclosure being kept singularly free from ground 

 pests. In such places gulls are useful and to such they must be 

 confined, for when they have run of vegetable quarters they not 

 only devour small mammals, molluscs (slugs), crustaceans (wood- 

 lice), myriapods (millipedes), annelids (worms), and insects 

 their grubs or larvae, but tear young cabbages, lettuces, etc., into 

 shreds and tatters, being only surpassed in this respect by poultry 

 (with which the gull associates in the farmyard and duck-pond) ; 

 these, without exception of breed, destroying ground insects mo t 

 effectually and inflicting most injury on cultivated crops. 



LAPWING or PEEWIT (Vanellus cristatus). This exceedingly 

 lively and nimble well-known bird, all its movements suggesting 

 possession of great instinctive powers, takes to confinement without 

 demur, provided it be captured just before being capable of flight, 

 and thrives either in a walled, boarded or wire-fenced garden, living 



or 



Rnton Cut ofH 



FIG. 143. LAPWING PINIONED. 



entirely upon insect food. One wing must be pinioned (Fig. 143) 

 or have the feathers shortened, the latter being most humane, 

 but requires to be repeated from time to time. 



The captive peewit requires a supply of water in a shallow vessel 

 during dry weather, and in severe winters or during frost and snow 

 visits the outsides of fruit or plant houses, when the bird must be 

 admitted to the interiors, where it will subsist for weeks on food 

 derived from the soil of beds and borders. Cool structures, such 

 as greenhouses or winter gardens, or houses in which bedding 

 plants are wintered, the area beneath the stages being soil, prove 

 most satisfactory. Where the floor is a hard one or there is likely 



