36o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



\ South Australian Explorations. 



- BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT^ WASHINGTON, D. C. 



Recently I have been much interest- 

 ed in the splendid scientific and explor- 

 atory work carried on in Australia and 

 Tasmania — the war notwithstanding, 

 and in all of these enterprises no one 

 is more active and energetic than my 

 friend, Captain S. A. White, of Fulham, 

 a city in southern Australia, situated 

 not far from Adelaide. Captain White 

 owns a beautiful estate at Fulham, to 

 which he has given the name "Wetun- 

 g-a," and by the last Australian mail he 

 sent me some very interesting photo- 

 graphs of his home (Fig. i) and the 

 beautiful gardens surrounding it. 

 Among these photographs I find one of 

 the nest of a very interesting Austral- 

 ian bird, namely the Black-breasted 

 Plover {Zonifer tricolof), which contain- 

 ed three eggs. The photograph had 

 been made by Captain White, and is 

 reproduced as one of the illustrations 



the bird in Doctor Leach's excellent lit- 

 tle volume on Australian Ornithology 

 — I refer to his recent book entitled 

 "An Australian Bird Book." It has 

 many colored plates, and nearly 400 

 text-cuts of Australian land and water 

 birds. Figure 81 of the latter presents 

 this plover, and through its assistance 

 I was enabled to make a drawing of 

 the species, which is here reproduced 

 in Figure 3. 



The bird lives upon insects, and is 

 rather an abundant species in the plains 

 districts of Australia and Tasmania. 

 Doctor Leach says it occurs in flocks 

 in the stubble, and can be easily recog- 

 nized by its markings, its upper parts 

 being brown, with the crown, line on 

 the face down to a broad band on the 

 chest, with the wing-quills black. The 

 throat and abdomen are white, as is al- 

 so a line through the eye on either side. 

 Black bars cross the tail-feathers, while 

 a spot at the base of the upper mandible 



FIG. 1. 



CAPTAIN WHITE'S RESIDENCE ON HIS ESTATE 



AUSTRALIA. 



•WETUNGA," AT FULHAM, SOUTH 



to the present article. This plover is 

 not very distantly related to some of 

 our own birds of the same family, as 

 for example our Common Kildear Plov- 

 er. There are two very good cuts of 



is brilliant red in the male, lighter in 

 the female. The Black-bellied or Gray 

 Plover they have in Australia is the 

 same as our bird here in the United 

 States ; but this is also true of other 



