BIRDS 363 



green grass, mixed with a few flowers and buds of the sea-pink 

 {Armenia maritima), which latter are sometimes appropriated 

 for a similar jDurpose by the Oystercatcher. Peewits arc quite 

 a feature of the salt marshes, at least in the month of May, 

 when their presence contributes not a little to the interest of 

 the waterside, as they quietly pose to watch your movements, 

 or shriek anxiously across the rough grass tussocks in which 

 their newly-hatched young are squatting, carefully concealed. 



The late John Hancock was one of the first to record that 

 the Lapwing produces a sound not distantly akin to the ' drum- 

 ming ' of the Snipe ; yet I have heard it on several occasions, 

 notably on May 27th of the year 1891, when visiting a small 

 moss near Cockermouth with Mr. H. P. Senhouse. Several 

 pairs of Peewits rose at our approach, and one individual 

 wheeled many times round us, giving tongue lustily, and occa- 

 sionally varying the procedure by beating the air noisily with 

 its pinions, turning right and left, and producing by the action 

 of its wings a loud swishing sound, flying very fast, and giving 

 two or three peculiarly sharp strokes of the wings to produce 

 the effect described. None of the other birds then present 

 acted in the same way. Another point not perhaps very 

 generally known is the Lapwing's fondness for fly-catching. 

 During the last days of April, when the Swallows are busily 

 hawking flies over Monkhill Lough, a Peewit often joins in the 

 sport, pursuing the insects in graceful undulating sweeps across 

 the water. Many Peewits frequent our grass lands in the 

 interior of Lakeland during the autumn, but the larger number 

 repair to the marshes of the coast. Sometimes they afford a 

 shot when clustering on the sands at low water, but the punt- 

 gunners soon teach them caution, and they chiefly feed on the 

 open salt marshes, where they are safe from pursuit, unless the 

 sportsman can wade up a creek and so approach them unawares. 



A common trait of the Peewit is the preference which it 

 displays for roosting in and around sheep that are being fed on 

 turnips. Though many Peewits leave us before winter, their 

 numbers in frosty weather are often legionary. Thus, on the 

 5th of February 1890 I fell in with an immense congregation 

 of Peewits near Longtown. At 8 A.M. I first observed the birds 



