CHAP, xvn.] SPRING BIRDS. 135 



CHAPTER XVII. 



Birds that come in Spring The Pewit : Pugnacity ; Nests of; Cunning 

 King-Dotterel Redshank Oyster-Catcher: Food; Swimming of; 

 Nest Curlew Redstart Swallows, &c. 



THE pewit is the first bird that visits us for the purpose of nidi- 

 fication. About the middle of February a solitary pewit appears 

 or perhaps a pair, and I hear them in the evening flying from 

 the shore in order to search for worms in the field. Towards 

 the end of the month, great flocks arrive and collect on the sands, 

 always, however, feeding inland ; it is altogether a nocturnal bird 

 as far as regards feeding: at any hour of the night, and 

 however dark it is, if I happen to pass through the grass-fields, 

 I hear the pewits rising near me. Excepting to feed, they 

 do not take much to the land till the end of March, when, if the 

 weather is mild, I see them all day long flying about in their 

 eccentric circles generally in pairs ; immediately after they 

 appear in this manner, they commence laying their eggs, almost 

 always on the barest fields, where they scratch a small hole just 

 large enough to contain four eggs the usual number laid by 

 all waders ; it is very difficult to distinguish these eggs from the 

 ground, their colour being a brownish-green mottled with dark 

 spots. I often see the hooded crows hunting the fields fre- 

 quented by the pewits, as regularly as a pointer, flying a few 

 yards above the ground, and searching for the eggs. The cun- 

 ning crow always selects the time when the old birds are away 

 on the shore ; as soon as he is perceived, however, the pewits all 

 combine in chasing him away : indeed, they attack fearlessly 

 any bird of prey that ventures near their breeding-ground ; and 

 I have often detected the locale of a stoat or weasel by the swoops 

 of these birds : also when they have laid their eggs they fight 

 most fiercely with any other bird of their own species which 

 happens to alight too near them. I saw a cock pewit one day 

 attack a wounded male bird which came near his nest ; the pug- 



