CHAP. XVII. | BPRING BIRDS. — 135 
CHAPTER XVII. 
Birds that come in Spring—The Pewit: Pugnacity ; Nests of; Cunning— 
Ring-Dotterel — Redshank — Oyster-Catcher: Food; Swimming of; 
Nest—Curlew—Redstart—Swallows, &c. 
Tue pewit is the first bird that visits us for the purpose of nidi- 
fication. About the middle of February a solitary pewit appears 
or perhaps a pair, and I hear them in the evening flying from 
the shore in order to search for worms in the field. Towards 
the end of the month, great flocks arrive and collect on the sands, 
always, however, feeding inland ; it is altogether a nocturnal bird 
as far as regards feeding: at any hour of the night, and 
however dark it is, if I happen to pass through the grass-fields, 
I hear the pewits rising near me. Excepting to feed, they 
do not take much to the land till the end of March, when, if the 
weather is mild, I see them all day Jong flying about in their 
eccentric circles—generally in pairs; immediately after they 
appear in this manner, they commence laying their eggs, almost 
always on the barest fields, where they scratch a small hole just 
large enough to contain four eggs—the usual number laid by 
all waders ; it is very difficult to distinguish these eggs from the 
ground, their colour being a brownish-green mottled with dark 
spots. I often see the hooded crows hunting the fields fre- 
quented by the pewits, as regularly as a pointer, flying a few 
yards above the ground, and searching for the eggs. The cun- 
ning crow always selects the time when the old birds are away 
on the shore ; as soon as he is perceived, however, the pewits all 
combine in chasing him away: indeed, they attack fearlessly 
any bird of prey that ventures near their breeding-ground ; and 
I have often detected the locale of a stoat or weasel by the swoops 
of these birds: also when they have laid their eggs they fight 
most fiercely with any other bird of their own species which 
happens to alight too near them. I saw a cock pewit one day 
attack a wounded male bird which came near his uest; the pug- 
