32 



The Common Lapwing. 



land, with a few bits of dried grass, bents, or rushes at the 

 bottom. The olive-coloured eggs with black blotches, familiar 

 to everyone, are usually four in number, and are keenly sought 

 after in districts frequented by these birds, to supply the 

 ^reat demand for them as luxuries of diet. Such high prices 

 are paid for plovers' eggs, especially in the early part of the 

 season, that the natural increase of the birds is largely 

 interfered with, and the multiplication of insects injurious to 

 •crops is the consequence. Selby says that the trade of 

 collecting the eggs continues for about two months, and that 

 great expertness in the discovery of the nests is shown by 

 those accustomed to it, who generally judge of their situa- 

 tion by the conduct of the female birds, as the latter, upon 

 being disturbed, invariably run from the eggs, and then fly 

 near to the ground for a short distance, without uttering 

 any alarm cry. 



No other bird is so beneficial to cultivators as the lapwing. 

 It devours snails, wireworms, beetles, aphides, the larvae of 

 various insects that infest grass, turnips, wheat, and other 

 crops, and other pests. As it feeds in the evening, it 

 has opportunities of getting at many insects which commit 

 their depredations after sundown. On account of their 

 insectivorous habits peewits are sometimes kept in gardens, 

 where their valuable services are highly appreciated. 



Peewits are killed for food to some extent, though they are 

 not particularly palatable. They are, however, protected in 

 close time throughout Great Britain by the Wild Birds' Pro- 

 tection Act of 1880. The eggs are protected, by the adoption 

 of the Wild Birds' Protection Act of 1894, in a few 

 counties in Scotland ; but this Act has not been adopted 

 hitherto in England and Ireland so far as concerns plovers' 

 eggs, though in some counties there is a movement on the 

 part of agriculturists for the protection of the eggs of one 

 of their best friends. The following testimony of Curtis, the 

 great economic entomologist, may be cited in favour of these 

 birds : — " In the marshy districts of our Eastern counties," he 

 says, " the plover, or lapwing, called also * pewit,' was for- 

 merly exceedingly abundant, as well as the ruff and ree, but 

 •the gun and nest-hunter have so thinned their numbers 



