LAPWINGS 275 



dykes, one just below Doune Castle, the other lower 

 down, at Craigforth. When will Scottish lairds 

 learn the lesson of the goose and the golden eggs 1 

 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 Pre- 



Lapwings 

 servation Act, are concerning themselves 



about the diminution in some districts of the lap- 

 wing, peewit, or green plover, and have petitioned 

 the Home Secretary 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, espe- 

 cially 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 



