ORDER crall;e. 463 



be so named in many provinces of France. Its flight is power- 

 ful, of long endurance, and of very considerable elevation. 

 When it traverses the meadows, it is accustomed to proceed 

 from place to place by little jumps. Its vivacity is consider- 

 able ; it keeps perpetually in motion, and hovers and sports in 

 the air in a variety of fashions. It holds itself continually in 

 different positions, sometimes with the belly upwards or side- 

 ways, and the wings in a perpendicular direction ; and few 

 birds display more grace and agility than this, in its various 

 evolutions. 



The lapwings are called in some parts of England green 

 plovers, and they remain here the whole year. In France, 

 they arrive in large flocks, which settle in the meadows, at 

 the commencement of March, or towards the end of February. 

 Their aliment principally consists of terrestrial worms, &c., 

 which are plentiful at this season, and which they draw from 

 the ground with great dexterity. When they have fed, they 

 are observed to withdraw to dykes or ponds, to wash their 

 bills which are filled with earth. Their manners are very 

 wild, and being perpetually on the alarm, they retreat on the 

 slightest noise in their neighbourhood to which they are not 

 accustomed, and fly at the sight of a man, though he even be 

 at a considerable distance. 



The males dispute with great bitterness and obstinacy for 

 the possession of the females. These last, when fecundated, 

 lay, in the month of April, three or four oblong eggs, of a 

 sombre-green, spotted with black, which they deposit on little 

 clods elevated above the surface of the marshy grounds, which 

 they usually select for their habitation ; this nest is quite 

 open, and the bird is in the habit of merely cutting the grass, 

 and forming a small rounded space of the necessary dimen- 

 sions. The lapwings sit on their eggs for four-and-twenty 

 days. The young, when scarcely excluded, run in the grass ; 

 when they are stronger, the flocks of lapwings, scattered 



