BLACK-HEADED PLOVER 119 



Captain Verner says, that this plover has learnt that 

 with judicious damping, the sand and the sun will 

 do the hatching, thereby removing the necessity 

 of having to spend long days and nights brooding 

 over the eggs. It is, however, very curious that 

 no other of the large number of birds that lay their 

 eggs on the desert sand or hard dry mud-banks 

 should do this : and especially curious since these 

 birds are first cousins, as one might say, to the 

 Spur-winged Plover — which breeds often within a 

 few hundred yards of where Black-headed ones are 

 — and this bird sits continuously till the young 

 are hatched. The egg resembles that of the Red 

 Grouse and is not very plover-like in character — 

 indeed, some ornithologists will have it this bird is 

 not really a Plover, but is more allied to the 

 Coursers. 



