THE PLOVER. 337 



confined place. In addition to its common food, a few square 

 pieces of turf, six or seven inches in thickness, were intro- 

 duced ; upon these were thrown a number of garden- worms, 

 which buried themselves in the sods as fast as they could. 

 Care was taken to keep them moist by frequent waterings. 

 The Lapwing, when disposed to make her meal, mounted one 

 of these sods, and, standing on one leg, kept regularly beating 

 the turf with the other. Worms, as we have already shown, 

 in speaking of the manner in which Starlings and Thrushes 

 feed upon them, are very sensitive of danger; and their great 

 enemy being the mole, no sooner do they perceive a vibration 

 or shaking motion in the earth, than they make the best of 

 their way to the surface, and thus fall into a greater and 

 more certain peril; for, as in the case of the Starling or 

 Thrush, so in the present instance, no sooner did it make its 

 appearance, than the Lapwing drew it out, and having disposed 

 of it, renewed his operations till he had fully satisfied himself. 

 But we have another story to tell of a certain species of 

 Plover's meals, far more extraordinary, and which we should 

 feel great hesitation in relating, had not the original observer 

 of former days been supported by eye-witnesses of later 

 times. Herodotus, an old Grecian historian, asserted, that 

 there was a certain small bird which, as often as the crocodiles 

 came on shore from the river Nile, flew fearlessly within their 

 jaws, and relieved them of a peculiar kind of leeches which 

 infested their throats. This ancient historian added, that, 

 although other birds invariably avoided the crocodile, it never 

 did this bird any injury. So extraordinary a story was 

 treated as fabulous by all naturalists. It is, notwithstand- 

 ing, strictly true ; M. Geoffrey Saint Hilaire, an eminent and 

 accurate French naturalist, confirms the fact beyond a doubt. 

 The bird alluded to is the Egyptian Plover (Charadrius 

 jfigyptiacus), which sometimes enters the mouth of the 

 crocodile, attracted thither, not, according to his account, by 

 leeches, but by a small insect like a gnat, which frequents 

 the banks of the Nile in great quantities. When the croco- 

 dile comes on shore to repose, he is assailed by swarms of 

 these gnats, which get into his mouth in such numbers, that 



z 



