LAPWING 



Vanellus vulgans 



HE Lapwing, or Peewit, as it is often called, is by far 

 the commonest and most generally distributed of the 

 Plover family throughout the British Islands. It breeds 

 in every county throughout Great Britain, and on most 

 of the outlying islands round our coasts. 



The Lapwing may be found in a variety of places 

 during the breeding season. It frequents the ploughed 

 fields, large grass pastures, meadows, commons, and the edges of the moors 

 where the ground is broken up by little pools, clumps of rushes, and small 

 mounds, and is covered with various weeds. The male is a very graceful 

 bird as he wheels and tumbles in the air. The Lapwing is rather a wary 

 bird, and does not suffer itself to be approached very closely, except when 

 anxious for the safety of its young; then it will tumble along the ground as 

 if its wing was broken, and fly round and round the intruder's head, uttering 

 its wailing cry, ' Pec-sweet, Pee-sweet,' sometimes swooping down just above 

 his head, making a buzzing noise with its wings, in its attempts to drive him 

 from the young ones. 



When their haunts are invaded, the birds rise in the air and fly rapidly 

 about, tumbling and wheeling in the most grotesque manner, uttering their 

 peculiar notes; sometimes flying round and round, flapping their broad wings, 

 and making quite a humming sound with each rapid stroke, or tumbling heels 

 over head in the air, which performance is always accompanied by a curious 

 lengthening of the last syllable of their note, and might be represented thus : 

 ' Pee-sweet, Pee-swect-swcet-sweet-swcet-swee-on-wcet.' It is a gregarious bird, 

 and in some parts of the country great numbers of these birds breed in close 

 proximity, though hardly in what might be called a colony. 



The food of the Lapwing consists of grubs, worms, insects, and small 

 slugs, but in winter when the ground is frozen and food is scarce, they retire 

 to the coast to feed, and may be seen flying in huge irregular flocks along the 



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