Crown and crest greenish black; sides of neck whitish; upper parts metallic green with purple reflections; quills black; tail-feathers white with a broad black band; face, throat, and upper breast bluish black; belly and axillaries white; tail-coverts fawn-colour. Length, twelve inches. * * * * * The lapwing, pewit, or green plover, as he is variously named from his manner of flight, note, and colour, is a familiar bird to most persons, and undoubtedly the best and most generally known member of the order which includes plover, snipe, and their allies. He is widely distributed in the British Islands, and fairly abundant, and, furthermore, is a bird it is impossible to overlook, on account of his conspicuous colouring, his singular manner of flight and appearance on the wing, and his unique voice. A first meeting with the lapwing invariably excites surprise in the beholder. Seen on the ground he is a handsome bird; in plumage and long, curling crest unlike any other British species, elegant in form, and graceful and somewhat stately in his movements. The moment he takes flight, displaying his curiously shaped, rounded wings, that have a heavy, flopping, heron-like motion, he appears like a different creature: he looks awkward and strange, like an owl or a goatsucker driven out of its hiding-place in the daylight. But no sooner does he begin to practise his favourite evolutions in the air than a fresh surprise is experienced. Rising to a height of forty or fifty yards, he suddenly dashes in a zigzag, downward flight, with a violence and rapidity unsurpassed by even the most aërial species in their maddest moments, and, turning like lightning when almost touching the surface, he rises, to repeat the action again and again. The heavy appearance and slow, flopping movement, and the marvellous wing-feats, are in strange contrast. He is a vociferous bird, and when his breeding-ground is invaded he circles high above the intruder, dashing down at intervals, as if to intimidate him, and uttering all the while a wailing cry, somewhat cat-like in character. His call, heard both by day and night, most frequently in the breeding season, is a hollow, bubbling sound, followed by a prolonged and modulated clear note of a peculiar quality, not readily describable, except by the epithet ‘eerie,’ which is somewhat vague. It is a quality heard chiefly in the voices of nocturnal species--owls and others.