100 LAPWINGS 



work of their assailants could they have caught them; 

 but the lapwings were too nimble for them; shrieking 

 wildly, they dashed headlong at them, whirled away, and 

 returned to the charge with such bewildering rapidity 

 that the great birds sullenly relinquished their hungry 

 quest. 



More than once in these notes I have expressed appre- 

 hension lest the increasing practice of killing lapwings and 

 sending them to market, added to the greatly increased 

 demand for their eggs, should seriously diminish the 

 number of these most useful birds frequenting our arable 

 land. I have always maintained that taking their eggs 

 was legitimate and harmless, because the birds, having 

 lost their first laying, produce another which has a better 

 chance of protection from the growth of young corn and 

 other herbage. An interesting corroboration of this 

 comes from a correspondent in Lanarkshire, who testifies 

 to the extraordinary diligence in taking plovers' eggs 

 which has been shown of recent years owing to the good 

 price offered by poulterers. At first, he says, he felt 

 concerned lest the birds should become less numerous in 

 consequence, and he was as much puzzled as pleased to 

 find that the reverse has been the case. Careful observa- 

 tion has convinced him that, so far from diminishing in 

 number, the spring flights of lapwings — that is, the lap- 

 wings which arrive in Lanarkshire to breed — are steadily 

 becoming larger. The solution which he offers of this 

 apparent paradox seems a reasonable one. He suggests 

 that in days when nobody sought for plovers' eggs the 

 birds were at liberty to sit upon their first laying, which 

 is generally in the latter half of March. Many of these 

 early eggs were destroyed by frost ; the parent continued 



