222 LAPWINGS 



Doune Castle, the other lower down, at Craigforth. 

 When will Scottish lairds learn the lesson of the goose 

 and the golden eggs? Cruive-caught salmon cannot 

 bring the landlord as much as sixpence a pound ; but 

 there are plenty of people ready to pay many guineas 

 for every salmon they may take with the fly. 



LXXXII 



Some County Councils, anxious to exercise their 

 powers under the new Wild Birds Preservation Act, 

 are concerning themselves about the diminu- 

 tion in some districts of the lapwing, peewit, 

 or green plover, and have petitioned the Home Secre- 

 tary to sanction the prohibition of the taking of 

 plovers' eggs. As the author of the Act in question, 

 I am naturally anxious that it should not be a dead 

 letter; but, though nobody can be more alive to the 

 merits of lapwings than myself, I should be sorry to see 

 a stop put to the harmless rural industry of collecting 

 the eggs, especially as that is not the way the mischief 

 comes. Earlier in these notes it has been pointed out 

 that all the lapwings reared in this country pass the 

 winter farther south ; while those that winter in Britain 

 are bred far to the north. The northern limit of lap- 

 wings in Britain passes just north of the Moray Firth ; 

 there are none in Caithness in December. It follows 

 from this that no amount of egg-taking would affect 

 the winter stock of lapwings in Britain. Moreover, 

 the eggs taken are chiefly those of the first nest, 



