'EDICVEMUS. ■>_{() 



aiiswerin- call came from a distance a watch was kept, and a second bird appeared in the 

 garden. It kept up its visits for many months, arrivin;,' each evening about 9 p.m. and leaving 

 next morning before sunrise. Soon after its visits ceased the other one died." 



I'rom Hroome Hill, South-western Australia, Mr. Tom Carter wrote .•—" 7.'«r////„/s -m/A^w/s 

 is distributed everywhere, but nowhere can be called really abundant. Except when the young 

 birds are still with their parents, they almost invariably occur in pairs, and are usually verj 

 wary, and w.ll run ahead of one just out of gunshot. At other times, more especially when 

 disturbed by anyone riding or driving, they rise to their feet, and after running a few yards stand 

 quite motionless with the head and neck stretched out in a rigid position, in which they much 

 resemble a small stump and can easily be overlooked. They also s-juat flat on the ground, neck 

 out stretched on the surface, and unless the bright yellow eye catches one's sight, cannot be 

 distinguished from their surroundings, their back colouring being very protective. I was told of 

 one being killed at Broome Hill township, with an axe, as it lay in the shelter of a wood-heap, 

 but it probably might have been previously hurt or shot. They are late breeders, as on the ud 

 November, 1907, I almost drove upon two eggs laid on the bare ground, within a few feet of Uie 

 wheel marks on a bush road near here. They were jiist hatching, one of the chicks having 

 pierced the shell, and a sitting bird came off them; the other bird was within a few yard". 

 On 2oth October, 1907, I found two fresh eggs here, and on iSth November, 190S, two young 

 birds, about a fortnight old, were caught and brought to the house. At Point Cloates, North- 

 western .Vustralia, these birds used to lay up during daytime under scrub or rocks on the high 

 rugged ranges, whence I have frequently flushed them." 



In open forest lands the eggs are usually deposited in a slight depression in the grassy sward, 

 sometimes on the bare ground, no attempt being made to form a nest for their reception, except 

 a few short blades of grass trampled down by the sitting bird. In timbered lands, when the 

 breeding grounds of this species are intruded upon, the sitting bird slips quietly off the eggs 

 and runs away, probably warned by the other of approaching danger. In these situations, so 

 closely do the eggs resemble their environment in colour, that it is often only by accident that 

 they are discovered. 



The eggs, usually two in number, vary from oval to elongate and swollen oval in form, the 

 shell, for the size of the egg, being comparatively close-grained, and the surface is usually dull, 

 although sometimes slightly lustrous. Typically the ground colour is of a light yellowish-stone 

 or yellowish-grey ground colour, which is more or less obscured with irregular shaped spots and 

 blotches of light sepia-brown and dull umber-brown, with which are intermingled in some 

 specimens fewer, but similar, underlying markings of various shades of inky-grey. On some 

 eggs the markings are thickly and evenly distributed, almost concealing the ground colour, 

 which in some places appear as if the markings had been smudged; others have the spots and 

 blotches sparingly dispersed over the shell, or they may be conhned principally to the thicker 

 end, where frequently they are confluent, forming here and there large clouded patches. Eggs 

 with a faint dull yellowish-white ground colour are occasionally found, and a rare variety is of a 

 faint reddish-buff, thickly freckled, spotted and blotched with various shades of umber-brown. 



On the 15th October, 1909, on Cobborah Station, Cobbora, New South Wales, while driving 

 in coiupaiiy with Mr. Thos. P. Austin, we observed a Southern Stone-Plover moving stealthily 

 along soiue fifty or sixty yards away. On approaching near the spot we discovered a single egg 

 partially sheltered by a short, thin, forked dead branch lying on the ground. By the appearance 

 of the glassy soil in which it was deposited the egg had apparently been sat upon for a week". 

 Taking the egg on the following day, we found on blowing that it was about half incubated. 

 I his bird often resorts to almost the same spot to breed, season after season, even though its 

 eggs are repeatedly taken. A set of two in the Australian Museum Collection, taken by Mr. 

 George Savidge at Copmanhurst, New South Wales, on the 7th October, 1907, measures: — 



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