siii.'iiA. 255 



I at last compelled lier to move and took the e'^-^, but the instant 1 had done so she leturned, 

 and there we left her, e\ery one beint; (greatly surprised, lor tills bird as a rule is very shy. 



" On the 13th November I found a nest with two ep,<^s. As I drove up the female merely 

 shifted off the nest and simulated lameness, which action attracted my attention; had it kept 

 still, in all probability I should not have noticed it, so much does this bird's colour assimilate 

 to that of the ;,'round. The ej,'gs were very much incubated. I came across a second pair of 

 these birds, and from their actions concluded they had eg<<s somewhere close at hand, as they 

 kept running around me and uttering their plaintive cry. I searched carefully about for some 

 time, but failed to discover any eggs. I then went away a short distance and watched, when I 

 noticed both the birds run to a certain spot and stand there, and on going to the place found 

 a small hole in the ground about six inches deep, which extended in horizontally for about 

 the same distance. I'utting my hand in f found at the extremity of the hole two newly hatched 

 chicks, where the parent birds had placed them, doubtless for protection from predatory Hawks 

 and Crows. On my taking them out they began to utter plaintive cries, and then the excitement 

 of the old birds was intense. They would approach within a few inches of me, and lay tlat on 

 the ground, with their long wings stretched out to their fullest extent, or at other times drag 

 themselves along as if mortally wounded, and uttering all the time piercing notes of distress. 

 After watching them for some time I replaced the young ones in the hole and went away, 

 e\ idently much to the delight of the old birds. 



"There is one peculiarity about Ghirrohi ^L^nilliii'iit, \vh\ch I am not aware is shared by any 

 other member of the feathered kingdom, and that is their love of heat. These birds only put in 

 an appearance here at the commencement of the hot weather, and the hotter the day the more 

 they seem to enjoy it, utterly scorning to seek shade, and running on the bare sun-scorched plain 

 while the ground is so hot that one cannot bear one's hand upon it, and all other animated 

 nature has sought shelter from the intense heat." 



Mr. Robert Grant has handed me the following note: — " I met with the Pratincole ( Stiltia 

 isahcUa) in August, on Kenilworth and Mooculta Stations, between Byrock and Hourke, in 

 Western New South Wales. The birds were not plentiful, only a few pairs as far as I could 

 see, being scattered over the most barren parts of these runs." 



Dr. W. Macgillivray sends me the following notes from Broken Hill, South-western New 

 South Wales : — " I well remember Stiltia isahella during my boyhood near the Gulf of Carpentaria, 

 where it was known as the " Rain bird," as just before the monsoonal rains set in numbers of 

 them were in the habit of flying up and down over the plains, uttering their shrill cries, 

 and the people of the bush knew when this occurred that rain was not far away. They feed on 

 the plains after the manner of the Plover tribe generally, on insects and seeds, and usually nest 

 on the bare ground. I found my first set of eggs in 1877, when travelling on horse back, with a 

 blackboy, from where the town of I^ichmond now stands to Hughenden. We were crossing a 

 ridge of ironstone gravel, when one of these birds attracted our attention by resorting to all the 

 usual devices of her tribe to lure us away from her eggs. We searched the ridge, but without 

 avail, until we rode slowly away, watching the bird over our shoulders, when she ran back to 

 her eggs, a darkly blotched pair heavily incubated. In 1898 I received a second pair of eggs, 

 brought to me in N'ictoria by Mr. Oswald Eager, from Morden Station, in Western New 

 South Wales. They were of the lighter or sandy-coloured variety. My second taking of 

 eggs was on the ()th November, 1903, when dri\ing from Horse Lake; after seeing several pairs 

 of the birds on the open plains, and feeding around the oozy margins of a swamp, one again 

 attracted my attention by her antics near the road side, on a gravelly portion of the plain ; by 

 waiting and watching the bird I soon found a pair of eggs ; there was no depression, but a few 

 pebbles and sticks were gathered round them. 



