THE LAPWING, OR PEEWIT.
(Vanellus cristatus.)
This well-known bird is found in nearly all countries, and is of the size of a common pigeon. The female lays four or five eggs, of a yellow colour, varied all over with large black spots and strokes. Lapwings build their nests on the ground in the middle of some field or heath, open and exposed to view, laying only some few straws under the eggs: so soon as the young are hatched, they instantly forsake the nest, running away with the shell on their back, and following the mother, only covered with a kind of down, like young ducks. The parents have been impressed by nature with the most attentive love and care for their offspring; for if the fowler, 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 sometimes 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 of which other species of the feathered tribe can boast: it weighs about half-a-pound. The head, and the crest which elegantly adorns it, is 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, he seizes and devours them. His voice, on the swampy places along the sea-shores, heard at night, resembles 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. Necessity soon compelled it to draw nearer to the house, by which it gradually became familiarised to occasional interruptions from the family. At length one of the servants, 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 length conciliated so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and night with his two associates, sitting close by them, and partaking of the comforts of a warm hearth. As soon as spring appeared, he discontinued his visits to the house, and betook himself to the garden; but, on the approach of winter, he had recourse to his old shelter and friends, who received him very cordially. Security was productive of insolence; what was at first obtained with caution, was afterwards taken without reserve; he frequently amused himself with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of; and while he was thus employed, he showed marks of the greatest indignation if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died in the asylum he had thus chosen, being choked with something that he had picked up from the floor.
THE WATER-HEN, (Gallinula chloropus,)