112 Stone Curlew 



and yew unlike the fine, hair-like down, consisting of short and long 

 " hairs," which is found in most charadriine birds— a nestling snipe, 

 for example. 



In fact, a nestling Stone Curlew has rather an artificial 

 appearance, and to m\' mind, is somewhat suggestive of a toy-shop. 



The legs are thick and somewhat clumsy -looking. The newly- 

 hatched chick does not appear to me to be capable of making much 

 use of its legs for the first twent3/-four hours or so of its independent 

 existence. In this respect they are worse off than the nestlings of 

 the game birds, Rails, or Plovers, which are active from the \cr\- first 

 moment they are out of the shell 



I believe that it is the rule that the offspring of birds that lay 

 only two eggs are male and female. It is the case with the various 

 Pigeons, with the Nightjar and the Stone Curlew, and as far as I am 

 aware, with ever\' other monogamous species laying only two eggs. 

 For if it were a mere question of chance what the sexes were going 

 to be, sometimes there would be an excess of males, and sometimes 

 of fem.ales, and in either case the excess is waste material, since 

 they would necessarily remain unpaired. 



The Stone Curlew is strictly monogamous, mating for life. 

 The male is a very dutiful and attentive spouse throughout the period 

 of incubation. Exactly how long this incubation lasts I have never 

 ascertained with the artificial incubator, as I never take their eggs. 

 It is not less than three weeks, I know, and more probably 24 or 

 25 days. 



The male certainly takes some share in sitting, and when 

 the female is on the eggs, he is always close at hand, watchful and 

 quick to warn her of any approaching danger. At the earliest 

 alarm, both birds steal rapidly away to a considerable distance, 

 and then commonh' take flight. They never rise near the nest. 



Like other birds breeding on the ground with uncovered nests, 

 safety compels them to be off the eggs for a good many hours most 

 days! Keepers, warreners, shepherds, stockmen, farm hands and 

 so forth, are continually passing to and fro on the Common : so 

 long as any of these are in the neighbourhood of the nest, the birds 

 have to keep away. This seems to me to be one of the reasons 

 for their somewhat late nesting, compared with the time of their 

 arrival. Stone Curlews commonly deposit their eggs early in May, 

 they might lay nearly a month earlier. But the average tempera- 

 ture of April is much lower than May ; frosts are less rare and 

 more severe. Frequent and prolonged absence from the eggs 

 during April would, it may be assumed, be fraught with greater 

 danger to the embryo chicks than intervals of the same period in 

 the warmer month of May. 



A further reason for their delay in nesting is probably the amount 

 of co\-er on the ground. The commons, which look bleak and bare 

 enough until the latter half of May, then become suddenly clothed, 

 with bracken. These ferns, as everyone knows, grow up rapidly 



