106 BIRDS OF NORFOLK.- 



season." These, however, by no means consisted only 

 of lapwing's eggs, as those of redshanks, reeves, snipes, 

 and black terns were indiscriminately gathered, and too 

 often, as Mr. Lubbock laments, without leaving a single 

 egg in the nest to encourage the birds to keep on 

 laying. In the Hockwold and Feltwell fens, as Mr. Alfred 

 Newton informs me the eggs of " starns" (black terns, 

 Sterna fissipes) were taken in former times to place in 

 the lapwings' nests, and the latter would "lay to" 

 them. The great demand, however, for plovers' eggs, 

 even when formerly abundant, is best shown by the 

 prices realised ;* and at threepence and fourpence a piece 

 one can scarcely wonder at the over zeal of the gatherers. 

 In 1845, Mr. Lubbock speaks of eightpence each 

 being given for the earliest, and that the price then 

 rarely fell below three shillings a dozen ; yet in the 

 present year, when scarcely a dozen or two were sent 

 to the Norwich market, they could be purchased at 

 four shillings. In their present scarcity, however, the 

 eggs of the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus) locally 

 termed " peewits" (which no doubt aids the deception) 

 are not unfrequently sold for the rarer lapwings' ; 

 and it is not a little difficult to convince those who 

 have thus been gulled, that plovers' eggs, in a market- 

 able sense, mean any kinds at all approaching them 

 in size, shape, or colour. As ground-breeders also, 

 the lapwings have other enemies than man ; but 

 the male bird exhibits great courage in defence of its 

 nest, as graphically described by Mr. Salmon in the 

 following passage from his Thetford notes : " Stationed 

 on a slight eminence in its vicinity, he no sooner espies 



* According to Pennant in 1776 the London poulterers supplied 

 these eggs at three shillings a dozen, and in 1812 Daniel, in his 

 " Rural Sports," gives four shillings a dozen as the price, then, in 

 the London markets. 



