THE PEEWIT. 261 



better, and bring off many of their young : but the 

 larger portion of them keep their station on the 

 banks and dikes of the great drains and sewers in 

 the marsh lands ; and the traveller, who happens, 

 in the spring of the year, to pass along any of the 

 roads bordering upon these haunts, where many 

 pairs are settled, will long remember the wearying 

 and incessant clamour of these birds, which, rising 

 as he approaches, wheel about him in an awkward, 

 tumbling flight, accompanied by the unremitting, 

 querulous cry of "peewit, peewit," continued by 

 the perseverance of successive pairs, as long as he 

 remains near their habitation; which generally 

 being a flat, aguish, uninteresting country, where 

 little is heard but the whispering of the wind in the 

 reeds and sedges, the teazing monotony of this bird 

 gives a very peculiarly dreary and melancholy cha- 

 racter to parts of our lowland roads. In some counties 

 these cold, wet districts go by the name of " peewit 

 or pewety lands.*" At this period of the year^ the 

 bird is bold and fearless, and menaces the intruder 

 with all its vociferous powers, when he approaches 

 its haunts ; but the broods being fledged, the 

 families unite, form large flocks, and retire to open 

 meadows, unenclosed commons and downs, feeding 

 on slugs and worms, and become wild and vigilant 

 creatures. It is well known that the glareous 

 liquor or white of the egg of this bird, upon being 

 boiled, becomes gelatinous and translucent, not a 



