THE PLOVER. 
337 
confined place. In addition to its common food, a few square 
pieces of turf, six or seven inches in thickness, were intro- 
duced ; upon these were thrown a number of garden-worms, 
which buried themselves in the sods as fast as they could. 
Care was taken to keep them moist by frequent waterings. 
The Lapwing, when disposed to make her meal, mounted one 
of these sods, and, standing on one leg, kept regularly beating 
the turf with the other. Worms, as we have already shown, 
in speaking of the manner in which Starlings and Thrushes 
feed upon them, are very sensitive of danger; and their great 
enemy being the mole, no sooner do they perceive a vibration 
or shaking motion in the earth, than they make the best of 
their way to the surface, and thus fall into a greater and 
more certain peril; for, as in the case of the Starling or 
Thrush, so in the present instance, no' sooner did it make its 
appearance, than the Lapwing drew it out, and having disposed 
of it, renewed his operations till he had fully satisfied himself. 
But we have another story to tell of a certain species of 
Plover’s meals, far more extraordinary, and which we should 
feel great hesitation in relating, had not the original observer 
of former days been supported by eye-witnesses of later 
times. Herodotus, an old Grecian historian, asserted, that 
there was a certain small bird which, as often as the crocodiles 
came on shore from the river Nile, flew fearlessly within their 
jaws, and relieved them of a peculiar kind of leeches which 
infested their throats. This ancient historian added, that, 
although other birds invariably avoided the crocodile, it never 
did this bird any injury. So extraordinary a story was 
treated as fabulous by all naturalists. It is, notwithstand- 
ing, strictly true ; M. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, an eminent and 
accurate Prench naturalist, confirms the fact beyond a doubt. 
The bird alluded to is the Egyptian Plover ( Charadrius 
JEgyptiacus), which sometimes enters the mouth of the 
crocodile, attracted thither, not, according to his account, by 
leeches, but by a small insect like a gnat, which frequents 
the banks of the Nile in great quantities. When the croco- 
dile comes on shore to repose, he is assailed by swarms of 
these gnats, which get into his mouth in such numbers, that 
