PEEWITS AND THEIR NESTS 115 



consideration. I can hardly dare to hope that 

 plovers will, to any great extent, derive any 

 benefit from the recent Act. Considering the 

 number of men who, for several weeks in every 

 season, are busily employed searching for plovers' 

 eggs, it is much to be wondered that this bird has 

 not been altogether exterminated by reason of the 

 demands of a senseless and selfish fashion one 

 which I hope my readers, be they many or few, 

 will do their utmost to discourage. 



Poor little birds ! they may well evince such 

 solicitude regarding the safety of their nests, when 

 so many eager hands are outstretched to rob 

 them. It is at times almost painful to witness the 

 intense anxiety which a pair of plovers will dis- 

 play if anyone chances to wander near their nest- 

 ing-place, as they fly round and round, making 

 the most frantic endeavours to entice the intruder 

 away from the spot, uttering the most plaintive 

 cries, wheeling round and round, almost beating 

 him with their wings, and never relaxing their 

 efforts until they consider all danger is at an end. 

 I have frequently been quite annoyed by these 

 birds when fishing. On such occasions one's 

 progress is but slow, and so long as I have 

 remained within a couple of hundred yards of the 

 nest I have had to endure this ceaseless screaming 

 and flapping of wings around my head, until I 

 have felt tempted to throw a stone at the birds, if 

 only to get rid of them for a time. 



It is a saying amongst the country-folk that 



