THE LAPWING. 309 



alarm, as if she were just driven from her nest ; and 

 as she wheels round him, often dashing the wind in his 

 face with the sweep of her wing, she tries to wile him 

 away in another direction. If she fail by her ma- 

 noeuvres in the air, she has recourse to stratagem on 

 the ground. She lights very near, and hops as if crippled 

 in the legs and unable to fly ; but if she be pursued, 

 which is very often the case, from her apparent lame- 

 ness and the consequent ease with which she may be 

 caught, she always contrives to keep at the same dis- 

 tance, till she be so far from the nest, as to be sure that 

 that is safe ; then she again takes to the wing ; and when 

 she has wheeled and screamed a little longer, takes her 

 departure, but alights at some distance from the nest, 

 and works back to it on the ground, in the same man- 

 ner that she left it. She contrives to practise these 

 arts till the young are able to fly ; but the lapwing, 

 which will thus come close to and hover about an un- 

 armed person, or a dog, alters her tactics if a gun, or 

 even a large stick, be presented at her. She appears 

 to know the danger of weapons, and the instinct of 

 providing for her own safety gets the better of that 

 which prompts her to protect her offspring. Rooks, 

 and many other birds that frequent places where there 

 is much shooting, have this dread of fire-arms ; and 

 when one is near them, they appear to know the dif- 

 ference between a stick and a gun : we know that to 

 be fact, for we have tried it several times. When the 

 rooks were at a considerable distance, they rose indis- 

 criminately, whether the object pointed at them was 

 stick or fowling-piece, but when very near, they did not 

 heed the stick ; and when they were scattered over a 



