i\ESTS A.VD HGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. ;r8- 



About 1860, neai- Yaloke — in those days my gi-andfather James 

 Pinkerton's pi-operty, on tlu- Wen-ibee River — tlie birds were in flocks 

 of hundreds, and I well remember the good old gentleman pointing out 

 to me a nest under a low shehHng rock on the plain, and, the timid bird, 

 at oiu- approacli half rising with its back against, the roof of the stone, 

 exposed a beautiful clutch of thickly-spotted brownish eggs. These 

 birds are not so tame now-a^davs. 



The next time 1 went nesting amongst these splendid little Plovers 

 I was a ga-own man. I was .stopping a day or two with Mr. Thomas 

 Musgi-ove, farmer, on the Wliarparilla Plains, near Echuca, Victoria. 

 There had been a good season for rain, and all tlie little " crab "-holes 

 were full of opalescent water. On the 5th August (1894), I was out 

 witli Mr. Musgi-ove-and his sons. We could see pairs of Plovers dotted 

 over the plains. Noticing one particvdar pair rise and fly round with 

 complainnig cries. I kept my ej'es on the spot whence they rose, and 

 walking -straight on through bog and swamp I came to the clutch of four 

 eggs, (resting, points inwai-d, in a slight hollow five inches across by one- 

 and-a-half deep, and lined with dead portions of stems of trefoil burrs 

 and roots of grass. 



Returning towards Echuca two days afterwards, I found another set 

 of four eggs. Tlie nesting hollow was lined with short pieces of stubble, 

 rabbits' dung, &c. How beautifullv the dark-coloured eggs contrasted 

 ■with the suiTounding short green grass ! This nest fonned the subject 

 of my photogi-aphic illustration. 



The end of the following month (September), when Mr. J. Gabriel 

 ;uid I were being merrily bowled over the Riverina Plains by Mr. Rod. 

 Macaulay, we captm-ed a pair of young Black-breasted Plovers just able 

 to fly. One gi-ew fat and plump and thrived in my aviary for nearly 

 two years, when a ^vretched,rat got in and ended its life. It weighed 

 six ounces. 



It has been noted that the Black-breasted Plover, lays an egg every 

 day, some time before noon, till the clutch is completed, and that the 

 period of incubation is twenty-eight days. Dry seasons do not so much 

 interfere with the laying of this Plover as it does with the Spur-wing 

 species, which sometimes does not lay at all if theie is not the needed 

 rainfall. 



The Black-breasted Plover is an early breeder. \Eggs have been 

 taken in Riverina in April and May, in South Australia in June, and 

 in Victoria in July and earlier. On the Darling Downs, Queensland, 

 where Mr. Lau thinks they breed twice a year, they usually commence 

 to lay in September. Therefore we may infer that the breeding months 

 in general include April to December, but chiefly the last four- months. 

 The yoimg in down of the Black-breasted or Plain Plover, which 

 can nui almost as soon as hatched, are finely dappled with black and 

 brown, except the back of the neck and tmder parts, which are light- 

 coloured. As soon as fledged the young and the old congregate, some- 

 times in immense numbers. 



Why are the eggs of the Plover family always placed together with 

 the points inwards?. I have heard two reasons assigned. One is that 

 the keel of the sitting bird would fit exactlv into, say, a clutch of fovu' 

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