170 
allen’s naturalist’s library. 
Eggs. — Three or four in number (usually three), pear-shnpr.d, 
and laid point to point. In character the eggs are very similar 
to most of the Ringed Sand-Plovers, at least as regards the 
ground-colour. The black markings are, however, much more 
plentiful, forming larger blotches, and they are also more 
equally distributed over the egg. Axis, I’a-j-qinch; diam., 
o-8s-o'95. 
THE LAPWINGS. GENUS VANELLUS. 
Vanellus, Brisson, Orn. v. p. 94 (1760). 
Type, V. vanellus (Linn.). 
The Lapwings belong to a section of the Plovers in which 
the wings are not long and pointed as in those species which 
we have been last considering, but are very broad and rounded, 
the secondaries, in flight, being nearly as long as the primaries. 
These birds have, in consequence, a much slower and more 
heavy mode of flight than the pointed-winged Golden Plover or 
the Sand-Plovers. The present genus contains but a single 
species, which is remarkable for its long and recurved crest of 
narrow pointed plumes, but it has no spur on the wing or 
wattle on the face, like so many of the tropical Crested Plovers. 
I. THE LAPWING OR PEEWIT. VANELLUS VANELLUS. 
Tringa vanellus, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 248 (1766). 
Vanellus cristaius, W. & M.; Macgill. Brit. B. iv. p. 133 (1852) ; 
Seebohin, Hist. Brit. B. iii. p. 57 (1885). 
Vanellus vulgaris, Bechst.; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. p. 545, pi. 531 
(1875) ; B. O. U. List Brit. B. p. 161 (1883); Saunders, ed. 
Yarrell’s Brit. B. iii. p. 283 (1883) ; id. Man. Brit. B.p. 539 
(1889) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. 15 . part xix. (1891). 
Vanellus vanellus, Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxiv. p. 166 
(1896). 
{Plate LXXIX.) 
Adtilt Male. — General colour above glossy olive-green, the 
scapulars purple at their tips; wing-coverts glossy steel-blue, 
with a greenish shade, more conspicuous on the median series; 
quills black, the primaries with a sub-terminal patch of ashy- 
white, the secondaries white at the base of the inner iveb, the 
innermost secondaries glossy green ; lower back and rump 
