308 A DESCRIPTION OF 
or any other enemy, should come near the nest, the 
female, panting with fear, lessens her call to make her 
enemies believe that she is much further off, and thereby 
deceives those that search for her brood ; she also some- 
times pretends to be wounded, and utters a faint cry as 
she limps away to lead the fowler from her nest. This 
bird is really beautiful, although it does not exhibit that 
gaudiness of colours which other species of the feathered 
tribe can boast of: it weighs about half a pound. The 
head and the crest which elegantly adorns it are black ; 
this crest, composed of unwebbed feathers, is about four 
inches in length. The back is of a dark green, glossed 
with blue shades ; the throat is black ; the hinder part of 
the neck and the breast are white. The Lapwing when in 
search of food stamps with his feet upon the ground, and 
when the earth-worms, alarmed at the noise, appear on 
the surface, he seizes and devours them. His voice, on 
the swampy places along the sea-shores, heard at night, 
resembles the sound of pewit, or tewit, and hence his 
name in several parts of Great Britain ; he is also called 
the Great Plover by several ornithologists. This bird is 
one of those who attract the fowler's attention in winter 
sport?. 
With slaughtering gun the' unwearied fowler roves, 
When frosts have whiten'd all the naked groves ; 
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o'ershade, 
And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade. 
He lifts his tube, and levels with his eye ; 
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky ; 
Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, 
The clamorous Lapwings feel the leaden death : 
Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, 
They fall, and leave their little lives in air. POPE. 
The following anecdote, from Bewick's History of 
Birds, exhibits the domestic nature of the Lapwing, as 
