Egg-Stealers Trick. 161 



sold in the most nefarious manner. It is suspected 

 that some of the less respectable breeders who rear 

 game birds like poultry for sale, are not too particular 

 of whom they purchase eggs ; and, as we have before 

 observed, certain keepers are to blame in this matter 

 also. 



Plovers' eggs, again, are an article of commerce 

 in the spring ; they are protected now by law, but it 

 is to be feared that the enactment is to a great extent 

 a dead letter. The eggs of the peewit, or lapwing, 

 as the bird is variously called, are sought for with 

 great perseverance, and accounted delicacies. These 

 birds frequent commons where the grass is very 

 rough, and interspersed with bunches of rushes, 

 marshy places, and meadows liable to be flooded in 

 the winter. The nest on the ground is often made in 

 the depression left by a horse's hoof in the soft earth 

 — any slight hole, in fact ; and it is so concealed, or 

 rather differs so little from the appearance of the 

 general sward around, as to be easily passed unnoticed. 

 You may actually step on it, and so smash the eggs, 

 before you see it. 



Aware that the most careful observation may fail 

 to find what he wants, the egg-stealer adopts a simple 

 but effective plan by which he ensures against omit- 

 ting to examine a single foot of the field. Drop a 



M 



