BIKDS OP DUMFRIESSHIRE 
THE LAPWING. Vandlus vulgaris, Bechstein. 
Local names-GEEEN Plover; Pewit; Pbesweep • 
Tee-wheet; De'il'sPlovek; Crested La;™ 
" Hjf " there's deadly feud ; 
He breaks your eggs and skails* yoi brood, 
And-waurt than grudging ye a rood 
O skruntyl heather- 
He d pookf ye bare, frae tail to hood 
To the last feather. 
He minds what Scotland greets|| for yet. 
When helpless Hill Folk, hard b^t,^ 
Could naewhere but in muirlands get 
A night's safe quarters— 
Sfe brocht the troopers on them het. 
And made them martyrs." 
" To the Peesweep." 
A »ery common residenl, subject to seasonal movements. 
" 'Pott'Jr ^ I^°bert Gray says.U from the 
Poet s Corner of a country newspaper," show how in a 
^unty „ch m traditions of the Covenanters, the Lap wig 
came to be called the " De'il's Plover." The poor ^eteh 
trymg to hide from Claverhouse's bloodthirsty trooperTan; 
hrm!vaTt"°"t^ to xnoss-hag on the heaLr:cM 
Hills may at times have been betrayed by the Lanwint.., 
circhng over him ; but as surely, musf many a secret Z 
venticle have been apprised of the approach'^f the dreX 
troopers by the actions of this bird, and so had time to 
ome out-of-the-way districts the Lapwing is still disliked 
It IS nowadays but rarely called the "De'U's Plover " aTd 
.s most commonly known as the Peesweep, with whk^ 
* Scatters, 
t Worse. 
t lU-thriven. 
§ Pluck. 
II Weeps. 
1 Birds of West Scotland, 1871, p. 264. 
AA 
