272 JACKSON : NOTES ON THE LAPWING NEAR GARSTANG. 



noise already mentioned which cannot be heard at any great distance ; 

 and (4t]i) the kind of contented short whistle which they indulge in 

 when a number are feeding together. These birds seem to feed 

 either by day or night, usually the latter if not very rough and 

 dark ; and during the day they may be sometimes seen sitting quietly 

 m the grass fields, all heads turned to the wind, and evidently resting. 

 The Lapwing lays almost, if not invariably, y^/^r eggs ; they are large 

 for the size of the bird, and it seems strange that the number should 

 be so fixed unless it is that any more would be simply wasted from 

 fitting badly into the nest, and not getting covered by the bird when 

 sitting. Nests have been found with five eggs in (see ' Zoologist,' 

 July 1887), but these cases are so very rare as to warrant the assump- 

 tion that two birds have laid in one nest. The eggs are always placed 

 in the nest with the small ends together, and fit admirably in this 

 position. The eggs vary a little in size and colour, and in rare cases 

 varieties are met with. The eggs are much sought after in this country 

 as dehcacies for the table, and large numbers are sent to market, in 

 many cases fetching a higher price than ordinary hen's eggs. The 

 white of the egg when boiled is not chalky white, like that of a hen, 

 but a semi-transparent jelly. The nests are not usually very near 

 together, although many may be in the same field, and seem to be 

 placed on all kinds of ground, and are most sought for in ploughed 

 and stubble fields. During the breeding season the birds are 

 scattered all over, and nesting even on the tops of the highest fells, 

 but the most favourite places are the rough pastures on high ground 

 where the grass is coarse, the ground often damp, and in places 

 growing rushes. These fields never fail to produce eggs if carefully 

 searched, but no careless glance will be likely to detect the nest, even 

 though it is open to your gaze, and the best plan to find them is 

 systematically to quarter the ground section after section, or to drive 

 your stick in as a mark and walk round it ; even this way a practised 

 eye is required to detect them with certainty, and some persons seem 

 to have a special 'knack' of finding them. It is not easy to detect the 

 bird leaving its nest unless you come on one suddenly over a hill-top^ 

 in which case you can sometimes walk straight to the nest. Certain 

 spots are sure to be selected as nesting sites year after year, not the 

 very same inch of ground, perhaps, but somewhere near. In one 

 field we know of, there is a shallow reedy tarn in the middle, and 

 round this is a strip of land covered with rough grass, the field itself 

 being ploughed. On this strip of grass there have been one or more 

 nests for several years now, and this year we kept watch on a nest 

 here, and the time of incubation seemed to be about twenty-one 

 days. It is a difficult matter to get the exact time of incubation in a 



Naturalist, 



