NOTES on the NESTING-SITE of GEIIYGONE 

 PERSON AT A, Gould. 



By Alfred J. North, C.M.B.O.U., C.F.A.O.U., Ornithologist. 



(Plate lvii.) 



Among the animal kingdom, birds, owing usually to their non- 

 combative habits, and luck of powers of retaliation, appear to be 

 highly endowed with instinct enabling them to resort to manv 

 stratagems and devices to secure protection, either from an 

 enemy when threatened hy dinger, or during the usually anxious 

 period of the breeding season. Birds that deposit their eggs on 

 the grassy sward, or nearly bare earth, would appear to stand 

 more in need of a protector than ixny others, but strange as it 

 may seem, the bare and exposed situation in which the eggs are 

 laid, affords them the very best protection. Take, for instance, 

 the eggs of the Southern Stone Plover (Burhi?ms grallarius) and 

 the Spur-winged Plover (Lobivanellus lobatus), how closely izi 

 colour do they resemble their surroundings; or the eggs of the 

 Black-faced Dotterel (jEgialitis melanops), the surrounding 

 pebbles on the margin, or in the dried up bed of a creek or river. 

 The eggs too of the Pratincole {Stiltia i*abMa), so frequently 

 deposited on a sun-baked plain, and as the wheel marks show 

 sometimes right in the centre of the track, how hard they are to 

 distinguish even in their apparently unprotected state. Again 

 the eggs of the Red-capped Dotterel {JSyicditia rvficapiUa) 

 deposited on sandy dunes and sea-beaches, with only a lew small 

 pieces of gravel to keep them from rolling away, how closely do 

 they assimilate to their surroundings, and how very difficult they 

 are to discover by the untrained eye. The actions of the birds 

 alone are frequently the only means of discovering them, by 

 their feigning a broken wing or leg. This is where instinct is at 

 fault, for to anyone but a novice it is the most fatal mistake the 

 birds could make, and is a sure indication that either eggs or 

 young are near at hand. Some birds, however, to me appear 

 to be endowed with a certain amount of reasoning powers, for 

 why will the Red-kneed Dotterel (Erythroyouys ductus) when 



