in securing one which weighed 7 lb.—Last C. Farman (Haddiscoe, Norfolk).
Popular Ornithological Fallacies.—Mr. W. Storrs Fox ('The Zoologist,' 1897, p. 514), writes like an honest lover of truth and an enemy to hasty deductions. But has he not tumbled headlong into the identical trap against which he warns others? Methinks so. It is a grievous blunder to generalise from a single instance. Mr. Fox says he would be "glad to know whether experienced field-naturalists consider it a 'preposterous notion' to suppose that a Lapwing may attempt to draw the attention of man or dog from her nest." It matters nothing to me, nor should I be in the slightest degree influenced by, what opinion experienced field-naturalists in general may hold on the subject; it is sufficient that I never said what is so specifically attributed to me—was a preposterous notion. Mr. Fox continues:—"Ten years ago last May I came suddenly upon a sitting Lapwing. She rose hurriedly from her nest, and tumbled along the ground, as if she could neither fly nor run." Then follows a little literary plaisanterie, in which Mr. Fox invokes a very remote and far-fetched contingency, but which is obviously clearly intended to embody his own incredulity. It would be affectation on my part to take this seriously.
Now I, too, have had similar experiences as the one recorded by Mr. Fox, but they are unquestionably the exception. What I wrote in the October issue of 'The Zoologist' was, that it was a preposterous notion to suppose, that "sitting Lapwings (that is, females)"—note the use of the plural number, please—"decoy intruders from their nests by their devices." And so I say again. I had in my mind the usual habits of the species when disturbed from their nests under ordinary circumstances; not the unusual mode of procedure induced by the fact of a sitting bird having been come upon "suddenly" and unawares. My ipsissima verba, "sitting Lapwings," surely imply that eggs were in my thoughts, not young birds. When the eggs are hatched, vastly different tactics prevail; both parents are then assiduous in their clamorous endeavours to draw intruders away from where the young are ambushed.
It is notorious that in olden days the great majority of writers on Ornithology were wholly at fault in the conclusions they had formed on the point at issue. Even Seebohm, whose loss we all so deeply deplore, was prompted to write that the old bird, having glided stealthily off the nest, rose in the air, "to flutter recklessly above the intruder's head." Only a few years ago, through my initiation, the nesting habits of the Lapwing were made the subject of an interesting correspondence in the 'Field.' Mr. F. Boyes, of Beverley, amongst others, entirely agreed with me that Selby alone, of the various authorities then referred to, had hit the true nail on the head. Let us hear Selby:—"The female birds invariably, upon
