LAPWING. GRALLATORES. VANELLUS. 223 



noise of the wings, arising from their rapid motion, aided by 

 the peculiar form of them, which offers a broken resistance 

 to the air. During these aerial exercises, which are sup- 

 ported for a long time without intermission, they utter a va- 

 riety of notes, very different in tone and expression from the 

 monotonous cry of alarm, that has conferred on them their 

 provincial appellation of Pewit, or Fees-weep. This species 

 is very widely dispersed, being found throughout all the di- 

 visions of the ancient continent. Specimens that I have re- 

 ceived from China are precisely similar to our own birds ; 

 they are in the winter plumage, and most of them seem to 

 be the young of the year. In Holland the Lapwing is re- 

 markably abundant. Its flesh, in autumn and winter, is 

 juicy and sweet*, not yielding in flavour to that of the 

 Golden Plover, or indeed to any of this tribe, but becomes, 

 in the summer season, dry and unpalatable. It feeds prin- Food, 

 cipally on earth-worms, in obtaining which it displays great 

 ingenuity. " I have seen," says Dr LATHAM, " this bird 

 approach a worm- cast, turn it aside, and, after walking two 

 or three times about it, by way of giving motion to the 

 ground, the worm come out, and the watchful bird, seizing 

 hold of it, draw it forth. 11 It also devours slugs, insects, 

 larva?, See., on which account it is frequently kept in gar- 

 dens ; but, when thus domesticated, it requires to be fed and 

 protected during the severity of winter, as it is, in such situa- 

 tions, unable to obtain a sufficient supply of its native food. 

 An interesting anecdote, shewing the degree of domestica- 

 tion to which this bird may be brought, is related by 

 .BEWICK, but as the extract would be long, I must refer my 



* On this account, as well as from their abundance, and their having so 

 long a crest, or aigrette, I am led to think that the birds mentioned by LE- 

 LAND, under the name of Egrets, as having been served up at the famous 

 feast of Archbishop NEVIL, to the number of one thousand, were Lap. 

 wings, and not that species of Heron, now known under the title of the 

 Little Egret, which, from the works of our earlier naturalists, appears to 

 have been if not an unknown, at least a rare species in Britain. 



