48 STRA Y FEA THERS FROM MANY BIRDS. 



Many Plovers' eggs are brought to this country all the 

 way from Holland, where the bird is extremely abundant, 

 but the risk in transit is large, and we depend upon our 

 native birds for the bulk of the supply. The ploughman 

 and his children gather many of these eggs. He will 

 often leave his horses in a quiet corner of the lane to 

 graze upon the grass by the hedge side, while he spends 

 half an hour in quest of Lapwings' eggs ; or his children, 

 when they bring his dinner, stray on to the adjoining 

 fallows and cornlands to find the nests. Gamekeepers 

 and even their wives search for these eggs, the money 

 obtained for them in the distant town often being spent 

 in some article of feminine finery, or to pay for some 

 little luxury they would otherwise never hope to obtain. 

 Plovers' eggs rank amongst the various objects of the 

 country which are the harvest of the poor. According 

 to season the peasant is generally engaged during his 

 spare hours in garnering some gratuitous harvest or 

 other, made the more welcome and profitable because it 

 needs no seed-time or outlay of any kind. In spring the 

 country yields its tribute of primroses and other wild- 

 flowers, and its harvest of Plovers' eggs ; in summer the 

 various wild herbs are ready for gathering, whilst in 

 autumn the wild fruits, nuts and mushrooms, and in 

 winter the holly and mistletoe help to increase the scanty 

 earnings of the country poor. 



