Peewit

“ In appearance and habits it resembles in many respects our peewits; its wings, however, are armed with sharp spurs, like those on the legs of the common cock. As our peewit takes its name from the sound of its voice, so does the teru-tero. While riding over the grassy plains, one is constantly pursued by these birds, which appear to hate mankind, and I am sure deserve to be hated for their never-ceasing, unvaried, harsh screams. ”

“ Peewit?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Yes,” answered the peewit; “that is just what I am doing. Sometimes I play it by myself, but I like it better when there are some other peewits to play it with me. We do it to amuse ourselves, and because we are so happy and have such good spirits. But it is only in the springtime that we play such games, for we are happier then than at any other time of the year. In the autumn and winter we fly about in great flocks over the fields and marshes, or come down upon them and look for worms and slugs and caterpillars, for those are the things we eat. ”

“ They have spoken of the cock-bird 'leading you astray' aerially, whilst the hen sits on the nest, and of both of them flying with screams close about your head when the young are out, which statements I have often verified. But they have never professed to have seen a Peewit flapping over the ground as with a broken wing in the way it is so constantly said to do. I cannot therefore but think that by some chance or other an action, common to many birds, has been particularly, and yet wrongly, ascribed to the Peewit. ”

“ This upward sweep from near the ground—sometimes from nearly touching it—with its attendant sweep back again, is one of the greatest beauties of the peewit's flight—a flight that is full of beauties. He does it often, but not always in quite the same way; it is a varying perfection, for each time it is perfect, and sometimes it seems to vie with almost any aerial master-stroke. The bird's wings, as it shoots aloft, are spread half open, and remain thus without being moved at all. ”

“ Yet that peewit found time in that fraction of a second to rise, open her wings, and get two feet into the air. And then the polecat took her, leaping with unexpected agility, and pulling her down out of limitless freedom and safety. There was just a rush, a snap, a wild-bird squawk, and down the pair went, to the accompaniment of furiously fluttering wings and in a cloud of feathers.
She had made a slight mistake in her calculations, that peewit, a matter of perhaps a quarter of a second, but enough. Nature has not got much room for those who commit slight mistakes in the wild, I guess ”

“ The water-vole is really a relative of that interesting creature you have often read of—I mean the beaver. "Well, papa," said Jack, "I am tired of sitting here, let us now go and hunt for peewit's eggs." All right, Jack, and if you find any you shall each have one for your breakfast in the morning. When hard-boiled and cold, a peewit's egg is a very delicious thing, though I think the peewits are such valuable birds, and do so much good, that I should not like to take many of their eggs. We had better separate from each other, so as to have a better chance of finding a nest. ”

“ The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is about a foot. ”

“ Tommy Smith went on eagerly. “Do let me tell you how the peewit”—
“I have nothing to learn from him, I hope,” said the mole; “a poor foolish bird who wastes all his time in the air.”
“Oh, but if you only knew how the mother peewit”—Tommy Smith was beginning again.
“I should be sorry to take her as an example,” said the mole sharply; “she is a flighty thing, without solid qualities. Other animals may be all very well in their way,” she went on, after a pause, “but they are not moles, and they none of them know how to dig.” ”

“ As it gets closer the other seems to become more excited. The advancing Peewit stops when only a foot or two off, and seems again indifferent, and the rolling one flies right up from his rolling attitude, without even first rising out of it—as far as I can see. ”

“ But it is hard to imagine a birdless Wells. The hills, beautiful with trees and grass and flowers, come down to it; cattle graze on their slopes; the peewit has its nest in their stony places, and the kestrel with quick-beating wings hangs motionless overhead. Nature is round it, breathing upon and [Pg_61] touching it caressingly on every side ”

“ Peewit, for you are always saying ‘Pee-wee-eet’?”
“I am always happy as long as people don’t shoot me, or take away my eggs,” said the peewit. “Why should I not be? It is very pleasant to be alive.”
“And the grass-snake said he was happy too,” thought Tommy Smith. “Then, are all animals happy, Mr. Peewit?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” the peewit answered, “they [101] all enjoy their life. That is why it is so wrong to kill them. For when you kill an animal, you take some of the happiness that was in the world out of it, and you can never put it back there again, however much you try.” ”

“ Tommy Smith couldn’t help remembering what the rat had said to him about asking the hen, and he thought he would ask her some day. But now he was talking to peewits. “You told me it was very difficult to find your eggs,” he said.
“So it is,” said the father peewit; “but it is not impossible.”
“I wish it were,” said the mother peewit. “But there are wicked men who learn how to do it, and then they can find them quite easily. Oh, what a wicked world it is!”
Tommy Smith didn’t know what to say to comfort the poor peewits, until all at once an idea occurred to him. “Why do you lay eggs at all?” ”

“ The peculiar instinct of the peewit in misleading people as to the whereabouts of its eggs, or young ones, is very curious.
LAPWING.
A very observant naturalist says, "As soon as any one appears in the fields where the nest is, the bird runs quietly and rapidly in a stooping posture to some distance from it, and then rises with loud cries and appearance of alarm, as if her nest was immediately below the spot she rose from. When the young ones are hatched, too, the place to look for them is, not where the parent birds are screaming and fluttering about, but at some little distance from it. ”

“ If you pass on a short distance and make no effort to find the nest, they recover confidence and descend. When the peewit alights he runs along a few yards rapidly, as if carried by the impetus. He is a handsome bird, with a well-marked crest.
The other locality to which I have referred was a wide open field full of ant-hills. ”

“ One Peewit will often rise from the ground and fly at another one near, who will then also rise, and the two will pursue each other a little, when, as if by mutual consent, both will desist, and go on feeding as before. The Starlings seem to enjoy the company of the Peewits. When these fly off, they go with them; and I have noted the flock of Starlings mingled and flying with the flock of Peewits (each almost, if not quite, as numerous as the other) , as also the single one flying with them. I do not think it is the other way. The Peewits, I believe, are quite indifferent to the Starlings. ”

“ Coming, now, to my observations on the Peewit (which have, as I suppose, a bearing upon the foregoing remarks) , I will premise by saying that anyone who watches these birds during the early spring will see them going through some curious actions on the ground, which I term "rolling," for want of a better word. A bird thus acting presses its breast into the soil, and, by moving from side to side, or turning upon it a little as on a pivot, makes a round cup of just such a nature as—lined with grass or lichen—the eggs, when found, are seen to repose in. ”

“ I believe that in these actions of the Peewit—commencing immediately after the excitation of pairing, with a peculiar run (which, or something similar to which, may be observed in various birds) , and going on, without pause or break, to other motions having the same plain sexual stamp upon them, though some may, in their effects, be serviceable—we see this process actually at work, and I believe, also, that in the nest-building of species comparatively advanced in the art we may still see traces of its early sexual or ecstatic origin. ”

“ Tommy Smith certainly thought the world might go on without peewits, but he didn’t quite understand the last part of the sentence. “But it seems to me,” he said to himself, “that animals think themselves very important.” “And are you a useful animal?” he said aloud to the father peewit,—for the mother peewit was busy again with her eggs and the young one.
“Useful!” exclaimed the peewit. “Why, [113] we are sometimes put into gardens to eat the slugs and the insects there. ”

“ The Peewit is especially numerous in Holland, and is generally distributed over the British Isles, except in the extreme north of Scotland and the Hebrides, everywhere occupying moorlands, downs, and swampy lands, and depositing its four eggs in a slight hollow, which is lined with a few straws or blades of grass. The eggs are pyriform, and have a pale brownish yellow or olive-coloured shell, prettily spotted and marked with brownish black. The young leave the nest as soon as they are hatched, and if alarmed, at once take refuge in the moss or grass. ”

“ This bird is a constant inhabitant of this country; but as it subsists chiefly on worms, it is forced to change its place in quest of food, and is frequently seen in great numbers by the sea-shore, where it finds an abundant supply. It is everywhere well known by its loud and incessant cries, which it repeats without intermission whilst on the wing, and from which, in most languages, a name has been given it, imitative of the sound. The peewit is a lively, active bird, almost continually in motion; it sports and frolics in the air in all directions, and assumes a variety of attitudes ”

“ The eggs of the peewit, or lapwing, as the bird is variously called, are sought for with great perseverance, and accounted delicacies. These birds frequent commons where the grass is very rough, and interspersed with bunches of rushes, marshy places, and meadows liable to be flooded in the winter. The nest on the ground is often made in the depression left by a horse’s hoof in the soft earth—any slight hole, in fact; and it is so concealed, or rather differs so little from the appearance of the general sward around, as to be easily passed unnoticed. ”

“ At once the little birds squat close to the earth, so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled, wailing and crying their doleful peewit cry, drawing them ever further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in the direction of the young, they try a new artifice ”

“ Professor Ansted includes it in his list, but only marks it as occurring in Guernsey. There is one specimen in the Museum.
102. PEEWIT. Vanellus vulgaris, Bechstein. French, "Vanneau huppé."—The Peewit is a common and rather numerous autumn and winter visitant to all the Islands, though I have never seen it in such large flocks as in some parts of England, especially in Somerset. Those that do come to the Islands appear to take very good care of themselves, for I have always found them very difficult to get a shot at, and very few make their appearance in the market. ”

“ I have alluded to the aerial combats of the stock-dove during the nuptial season as elucidating similar movements on the part of the peewit, though I was not able so fully to satisfy myself as to the meaning of these in the latter bird. The fighting of birds on the wing has sometimes—to my eye, at least—a very soft and delicate appearance, which does not so much resemble fighting as sport and dalliance between the sexes. ”

“ This bird is most abundant over all south-east Australia, on plains, marshes, and rivers, its cry and flight are very like that of our Peewit at home, and it adopts the same stratagem to draw the fowler from its young. It is a pretty bird, with bright yellow eye and a singular wattle coming from the bill along the cheek. It is also remarkable for a spur on the shoulder which it uses with much force in fighting with any crow or hawk. ”

“ Other birds fly for a purpose: the peewit seems to find enjoyment beating to and fro in the air.
Crows frequently build in oaks, and unless they are driven away by shot will return to the same neighbourhood the following year. They appear to prefer places near water, and long after the nesting time is past will visit the spot. Small birds will sometimes angrily pursue them through the air as they will hawks. ”

“ The main features, here, are that the bird sits for some time together with its breast pressed into the sand, augmenting the pressure by various more or less pronounced movements of the body, and that many little cup-shaped depressions, but a small proportion of which ever have eggs laid in them, are to be found about over the warrens and other such Peewit-haunted parts that are open and loose-soiled, during the early spring-time. ”

“ Large numbers of these eggs are gathered for culinary purposes, the crop being systematically taken, and the birds always allowed eventually to sit upon their final clutch. Many of these eggs are passed off for those of the Peewit by unscrupulous dealers, notably in Leadenhall market. Few scenes in the bird world are prettier than a colony of Black-headed Gulls. When disturbed at their nests the birds rise in fluttering crowds, drifting noisily to and fro, anxious for the safety of their eggs or helpless young. ”