PEEWIT. 
47 
It is a fine sight to see a large flock of these birds wheeling 
about, and as they turn their dark or their light sides towards 
you, now gleaming and glancing in the setting sun, and now 
shadowing into the blackness of the dense moving mass. In 
the spring season ‘their flight, particularly that of the male 
birds, is very peculiar, being subject to a variety of evolutions, 
in the course of which they frequently dart perpendicularly 
upwards to a considerable height, then throwing a summerset, 
as it would seem, in the air, suddenly descend almost to the 
ground, along which they course with many turnings and 
great velocity, till the same manoeuvre is repeated.’ I have 
been looking at them the day of writing this, and though I 
had so often watched them before, did so again with increased 
curiosity. 
They feed on worms, slugs, caterpillars, and insects, and 
this chiefly during twilight or clear nights. Bishop Stanley 
says that one which a friend of his had, used to stand on 
one leg and beat the ground regularly with the other, in 
order to frighten the worms out of their holes. I should 
have thought that it would have had a contrary effect, but 
his Lordship gives the following as the theory on the subject: 
—‘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.’ Dr. Latham says the 
same. 
The well-known note of the Peewit, from whence it derives 
its name, composed namely of these two syllables, the latter 
uttered ‘crescendo,’ ‘pe-wit, pewit, pe-wit,’ ‘pees-wit, pees-wit,’ 
or ‘pees-weep, pees-weep,’ is one that cannot fail to attract 
the ear, whether heard for the first or the thousandth time. 
The French, in like manner, call the bird Dixhuit. It has 
also a note of alarm or ‘quasi’ alarm, which after listening 
to to-day, I can best describe as a sort of whining sound. 
The young are often hatched as soon as April, and begin 
to run about almost immediately after being hatched. Mr. 
D. M. Falconer relates, in ‘The Naturalist,’ vol. ii, p.p. 33-34, 
a curious instance of the parent bird when disturbed from 
the nest, running off with an egg under her wing, a distance 
of two hundred yards. 
The nest is that which ‘Mother Earth’ supplies by a small 
and slight depression in the soil, with the addition sometimes 
of a few bits of grass, heath, or rushes, and this, perhaps, 
