372 Birds. 
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, he seizes and devours them. His voice, on the 
swampy places along the sea-shores, heard at night, re- 
sembles the sound of peewit, or teewit, 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: 
" With slaughtering gun th' 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 
well as the art with which it conciliates the regard of 
animals materially differing from itself, and generally 
considered as hostile to every species of the feathered 
tribe. Two Lapwings were given to a clergyman, who 
put them into his garden ; one of them soon died, but 
the other continued to pick up such food as the place 
afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual supply. Ne- 
cessity soon compelled it to draw nearer to the house, by 
which it gradually became familiarised to occasional in- 
terruptions from the family. At length one of the ser- 
vants, when she had occasion to go into the back kitchen 
with a light, observed that the Lapwing always uttered 
his cry of " pee-wit," to obtain admittance. The bird 
soon grew more familiar ; as the winter advanced, he 
approached as far as the kitchen, but with much caution, 
as that part of the house was generally occupied by a 
dog and cat, whose friendship, however, the Lapwing at 
