“forward lapwing!
He flies with the shell on’s head.”
The lapwing, like the partridge, is also said to draw pursuers from her nest by fluttering along the ground in an opposite direction or by crying in other places. Thus, in the “Comedy of Errors” (iv. 2), Shakespeare says:
“Far from her nest the lapwing cries away.”
Again, in “Measure for Measure” (i. 4), Lucio exclaims:
“though ’tis my familiar sin,
With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
Tongue far from heart.”
Once more, in “Much Ado About Nothing” (iii. 1), we read:
“For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs,
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.”
Several, too, of our older poets refer to this peculiarity. In Ben Jonson’s “Underwoods” (lviii.) we are told:
“Where he that knows will like a lapwing fly,
Farre from the nest, and so himself belie.”
Through thus alluring intruders from its nest, the lapwing became a symbol of insincerity; and hence originated the proverb, “The lapwing cries tongue from heart,” or, “The lapwing cries most, farthest from her nest.”[260]