384 THE PLOVERS 



alighted on the ground " and flapped its wings over its back close in 

 front of the cow's nose." The cow, either annoyed or interested, 

 followed the bird, and so was lured to a safe distance from the nest. 

 Another was seen to attack and drive away a flock of geese. 1 



The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain states that he has often found re- 

 mains of dead lapwings on the breeding-grounds, and as he once 

 found a sternum of one on an old nest used as a " d ining- table " 

 of a sparrow-hawk, and has witnessed at nesting time an unsuccessful 

 attempt by a sparrow-hawk to kill a lapwing, he believes this hawk to 

 be responsible for the death of the lapwings whose remains he has 

 found. 2 



Although I have never tested it myself, I have been told by 

 farmers that lapwings will continue to sit if their eggs are moved 

 a yard or so from where they were laid, and placed in a hand-made 

 depression. This is occasionally done to save them when a field is 

 being harrowed in the spring. One bird continued to sit although 

 her eggs were moved more than once. This bird was exceptionally 

 devoted, for a heavy snow-storm covered the eggs, and she was found 

 sitting, although there was but a small hole in the snow through 

 which the eggs could be seen. The bird's wing feathers were bound 

 with frozen snow so that she could not fly, but when she was released 

 and the snow cleared from the eggs, she returned to them and 

 continued to sit. 3 



Incubation takes about twenty-six days. Eggs hatched in an 

 incubator on the 25th, 26th, and 27th days, while a clutch hatched 

 naturally in the nest on the 26th day from the time when the last egg 

 was laid. The eggs are not always laid on consecutive days, but incu- 

 bation does not commence until the clutch is completed. In one 

 instance three days elapsed between the laying of the third and fourth 

 eggs. 4 Although the clutch normally consists of four eggs, five are 

 occasionally found. I have seen three nests, each containing five 



1 Field, 1903, vol. ci. p. 997. * Zoologist, 1904, p. 104. 



3 Field, 1892, vol. Ixxix. p. 625. 4 Ibid., 1882, vol. lix. p. 285. 



