110 
CHAEADRIIDtE. 
ing account of it. The term Squatarola lielvetica, used by Cuvier 
— it was the Tringa helvetica of Linnaeus — is adopted in Bona- 
parte^s Comparative Catalogue of the Birds of Europe and the 
United States. 
THE LAPWING. 
Green Plover (in Ireland)^ Peewit. 
Vanellus cristatusj Meyer and Wolf. 
Tringa vanellus, Linn. 
Owing to the prevalence of bogs and humid tracts is 
abundant in Ireland. 
In the spring and summer^ these beautiful and interesting birds 
enliven all our moist moors with their presence^ and increase 
wonderfully, considering the extent to which they are robbed of 
their eggs. Idle country lads and mountain herds often lie on 
the mountain side from morning till evening, for the purpose of 
watching the poor lapwing to her nest ; and in some places have 
confessed to me that they had almost lived upon the eggs so 
procured. In the north of Ireland these are very seldom brought to 
market, though they are to Dublin, in large quantities. The places 
resorted to by the lapwing for breeding are of various kinds ; as 
the elevated mountain moor, the low morass, pastures, rushy 
meadows, and fallow-lands; more rarely, bean-fields and rocky 
marine islets. About the middle of Eebruary, they generally 
revisit and take up their abode on their breeding station ; but the 
time varies according to the season. On the 1st March, 1833 
and 1834, a friend noted them as beginning to fly around his dog 
on the Belfast mountains ; but so late as the 26th March, 1843, 
I saw a number about the margin of a bog, which, though 
the weather had been fine and open for some time before, evi- 
dently had not yet chosen sites for their nests. Had they done 
so, we should have been saluted by them in crossing the bog ; 
but not one came near us, nor even hovered over the bog itself. 
