372 Birds. 



this crest, composed of unwebbed feathers, is about four 

 inches in length. The back is of a dark green, glossed 

 with blue shades ; the throat is black; the hinder part 

 of the neck and the breast are white. The Lapwing, 

 when in search of food, stamps with his feet upon the 

 ground, and when the earth-worms, alarmed at the noise, 

 appear, he seizes and devours them. His voice, on the 

 swampy places along the sea-shores, heard at night, re- 

 sembles the sound of peewit, or teewt, and hence his name 

 in several parts of Great Britain ; he is also called the 

 Great Plover by several ornithologists. This bird is one 

 of those who attract the fowler's attention in winter : 



" With slaughtering gun th' unwearied fowler roves, 

 When frosts have whiteu'd all the naked groves ; 

 Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade, 

 And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade. 

 He lifts his tube, and levels with his eye ; 

 Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky : 

 Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, 

 The clamorous Lapwings feel the leaden death : 

 Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, 

 They fall, and leave their little lives in air." POPE. 



The following anecdote, from Bewick's " History of 

 Birds," exhibits the domestic nature of the Lapwing, as 

 well as the art with which it conciliates the regard of 

 animals materially differing from itself, and generally 

 considered as hostile to every species of the feathered 

 tribe. Two Lapwings were given to a clergyman, who 

 put them into his garden ; one of them soon died, but 

 the other continued to pick up such food as the place 

 afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual supply. Ne- 

 cessity soon compelled it to draw nearer to the house, by 

 which it gradually became familiarised to occasional in- 

 terruptions from the family. At length one of the ser- 

 vants, when she had occasion to go into the back kitchen 

 with a light, observed that the Lapwing always uttered 

 his cry of " pee-wit," to obtain admittance. The bird 

 Boon grew more familiar ; as the winter advanced, he. 

 approached as far as the kitchen, but with much caution, 

 as that part of the house was generally occupied by a 

 dog and cat, whose friendship, however, the Lapwing at 



