ON MOORS, COMMONS, AND HEATHS. 167 



identified by its curious erratic flight and aerial 

 gambols, and its mewing notes of weet-a-weet, 

 pee-weet-weet, as it circles over your head in alarm 

 for its eggs or young. It has the general colour 

 of the upper parts green glossed with purple ; the 

 crown, throat, and breast are black, a crest of 

 long, narrow feathers ornamenting the former ; 

 the remainder of the underparts are white, except 

 the tail coverts, which are chestnut- buff; the tail 

 is white, broadly tipped with black on all but the 

 two outermost feathers, which are uniform white. 

 It should be remarked that in winter plumage the 

 throat is rufous white. The Lapwing changes its 

 ground with the season, and towards winter very 

 often forsakes entirely its summer haunts, retiring 

 to the flat coasts and marine meadows. It is an 

 early breeder, and its eggs may be found in 

 southern localities during the first week of April. 

 Vast numbers of these are gathered for the table, 

 and justly esteemed as a great delicacy. The 

 Lapwing makes little or no nest, laying her four 

 eggs in a hollow in the ground, often in the foot- 

 prints of a horse or cow, not unfrequently in the 

 centre of a tuft of rushes, or even on the top of a 

 molehill. They are pale olive-green or brown in 

 ground colour, boldly spotted, blotched, and 

 streaked with blackish brown and gray, and. are 

 large for the size of the bird. The Lapwing 

 becomes exceedingly clamorous if its breeding- 

 place is disturbed, and many and varied are the 

 wiles it displays to entice you from its eggs or 

 helpless young. These birds are more or less 

 gregarious throughout the year, and numbers of 

 nests may be found on the same stretch of ground. 

 The food of this species is composed of worms, 



