The eggs of plovers in some parts are now receiving protection all the
year round, the Board of Agriculture having given notice that peewits
feed wholly to the benefit of field crops and do no injury whatever to
the interests of farmers. The greedy and the thoughtless have taken
plovers' eggs in unreasonable numbers, and total protection is to be
welcomed. It may be argued that peewits' eggs are a rare delicacy, and
wholesome food; that where they may be taken a limited number of old
men may earn a few shillings; that a law superior to find-and-take
would be difficult to enforce; also that taking the eggs until about
the middle of April does not materially affect the numbers of peewits.
What with the effects of frosts and the destruction of eggs during the
tillage of fields, such as harrowing the fallows and rolling the grass
and cornfields, where peewits mostly nest, the greater portion of the
first layings cannot in any case survive. But those allowed to take
eggs for the sake of profit will not stop at early ones, and peewits
are such useful birds that thorough protection for all the eggs would
be the best policy.
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