CH. V1.] PEEWIT OR PEWIT? 215 
and, getting into their pew, remain perdu there 
until they came, when it was thought better to 
allow him to remain quietly where he was, than 
make a disturbance by turning him out. 
It was remarked to me by a farmer one day, 
when, whilst out with the hounds, we came across 
a flock of Peewits, “It's a bad sign to see they 
birds” —explaining his meaning to be that they 
generally haunt only poor, bad land, in which he 
was certainly correct. 
In the Isle of Wight (and indeed I believe 
generally in the South of England) these birds are 
invariably called by the lower orders not “Pee- 
wits’ but “ Pewits,’ and I am inclined to think 
that they are right; for, although the bird does 
vary its note, and at times, particularly when pur- 
suing a straight course in company with others, 
occasionally gives utterance to a note resembling 
“pee-wit,” yet Iam mistaken, if, generally, when 
circling round an intruder (at which times its cry is 
louder and more marked than at others) the cry 
does not more nearly approach to “pew-it,” greater 
stress being laid on the lower note in the early part 
of the cry than on the higher one which concludes it, 
I was walking one day with a gentleman over 
his home-farm, when we observed the grass on 
