LAPWINa. GRALLATORES. VANELLUS. 223 
noise of the wings, arising from their rapid motion, aided by 
the peculiar form of them, which offers a broken resistance 
to the air. During these aérial exercises, which are sup- 
ported for a long time without intermission, they utter a va- 
riety of notes, very different in tone and expression from the 
monotonous cry of alarm, that has conferred on them their 
provincial appellation of Pewit, or Pees-weep. 'This species 
is very widely dispersed, being found throughout all the di- 
visions of the ancient continent. Specimens that I have re- 
ceived from China are precisely similar to our own birds ; 
they are in the winter plumage, and most of them seem to 
be the young of the year. In Holland the Lapwing is re- 
markably abundant. Its flesh, in autumn and winter, is 
juicy and sweet*, not yielding in flavour to that of the 
Golden Plover, or indeed to any of this tribe, but becomes, 
in the summer season, dry and unpalatable.—It feeds prin- 
cipally on earth-worms, in obtaining which it displays great 
ingenuity. ‘I have seen,” says Dr Laruam, “ this bird 
approach a worm-cast, turn it aside, and, after walking two 
or three times about it, by way of giving motion to the 
ground, the worm come out, and the watchful bird, seizing 
hold of it, draw it forth.” It also devours slugs, insects, 
larvee, &c., on which account it is frequently kept in gar- 
dens; but, when thus domesticated, it requires to be fed and 
protected during the severity of winter, as it is, in such situa- 
tions, unable to obtain a sufficient supply of its native food. 
An interesting anecdote, shewing the degree of domestica- 
tion to which this bird may be brought, is related by 
Berwick, but as the extract would be long, I must refer my 
* On this account, as well as from their abundance, and their having so 
long a crest, or aigrette, I am led to think that the birds mentioned by Lr- 
LAND, under the name of Egrets, as having been served up at the famous 
feast of Archbishop Neviz, to the number of one thousand, were Lap- 
wings, and not that species of Heron, now known under the title of the 
Little Egret, which, from the works of our earlier naturalists, appears to 
have been if not an unknown, at least a rare species in Britain. 
Food. 
