LAPWING. 287 



over from the Continent in the autumn, and the spread of 

 cultivation in Scotland seems rather to have favoured its 

 increase, especially in Shetland, where it was formerly a 

 rare bird. In Ireland it is very abundant, but Sir K. Payne- 

 Gallwey states that the eggs are not appreciated or collected 

 there as they are in England. The birds, however, are 

 netted in large numbers, and he gives an interesting account 

 of the mode of making and setting the net as practised 

 in that country, remarking upon the superior wariness of 

 the Lapwing, which takes alarm far sooner than the Golden 

 Plover.* 



A rare straggler to Greenland, and only a visitor to the 

 milder districts of Iceland, and to the Faeroes, the Lapwing 

 occurs in Europe up to the vicinity of the Arctic circle. In 

 Norway and Southern Sweden it becomes tolerably abundant, 

 although about Jaedren, Mr. Collett says that it has decreased 

 of late, owing to over-robbery : three to four thousand eggs 

 having been shipped in a year from Egersund. From 

 Northern Kussia, and the cold provinces of the Baltic, the 

 Lapwing migrates southwards in winter, but throughout the 

 temperate portions of the Continent it is resident, breeding 

 in suitable localities dovm to the extreme south of Spain. 

 The majority of the eggs sent to this country in spring 

 come from Holland and North Germany, where they are 

 systematically gathered up to a fixed date, after which their 

 taking is prohibited by law. The Lapwing is a winter visitor 

 to the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, and Northern Africa, 

 a limited number remaining to breed in Morocco, Algeria, 

 and Egypt ; it is abundant in Asia Minor and Palestine 

 during winter, and its range may be traced along the 

 Euphrates valley, and Persia, to Northern India. Severtzoff 

 states that in Turkestan it breeds up to an elevation of 

 10,500 feet, and it reaches across the temperate portions of 

 Siberia to Mongolia, China, and Japan. 



The adult in breeding-plumage has the beak black ; the 

 irides hazel ; forehead, crown, and occiput, black, forming a 

 cap or hood, which ends behind in a tuft of six or seven 



* The Fowler in Ireland, pp. 183-197. 



