lapwing and all the tribe of the plover bear so The Tribe 



of the 

 Plover. 



evil a repute. Not always thus, however : for ( 



in some parts of Germany this plover, I do 

 not know why, is called the Virgin Mary's 

 Dove, and is greeted with welcome. Even in 

 Argyll there is a lost or confused kindly legend, 

 for sometimes when children run along the 

 moorland mocking the Pibhinn (pee-veen . . . 

 the Gaelic equivalent of the lowland peaseweep 

 and the southern ipee-weet) they cry 



" Welcome back, welcome back, Pee-veen, Pee-veen ! 

 But keep the mind and the rain behind your tail, 

 Or you'll never see thejields of heaven again ! . . ." 



or words to that effect. In the East the 

 Mohammedan women have a beautiful name 

 for this bird . . . the Sister of the Brother : 

 and, says the authority whence in some 

 forgotten reading I took this note, 'when 

 these women hear the cry in the evening, they 

 run from their houses and throw water in the 

 air, that the bird may use it to assuage the 

 pain of the burn on the top of the head, still 

 marked by some black feathers.' This is in 

 allusion to an oriental legend that the lapwing 

 was once a princess. This princess had a 

 passionate love for a brother who had long 

 been absent, and when one day she heard that 

 he was on his return and close at hand and 



105 



