l6o SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



perly speaking, yet most of them, after scooping- a 

 slight hollow in the sand or shingle on which they 

 deposit their eggs, line this hollow with small flat 

 stones or little bits of shell, matching the eggs to some 

 extent in colour. It would be hard to say what is 

 their reason for doing this, but certainly if these little 

 stones or bits of shell be removed, the birds will 

 replace them with others. 



I remember watching some Ringed Plovers on a 

 bed of shingle not long ago in Norfolk, and I could 

 see, with the aid of a pair of glasses, one of these 

 birds sitting on her eggs ; the white circle round the 

 neck, from which the birds take their name and which 

 is so conspicuous when they are standing, was now 

 closed up to a narrow ring as the bird sat on the beach, 

 and might have been a thin white stone, sticking up 

 edgewise ; it also served the purpose of dividing the 

 bird, as it were, into two pieces, which looked like two 

 brown stones. Another instance of the same kind was 

 in connexion with the Kentish Plover, a rather rare 

 bird in England. I was trying to make out the identity 

 of a small wading bird near Las Palmas in Grand 

 Canary, which I think was a Turnstone, as it was 

 feeding in a shallow pool. The bird was working its 

 way round what I took to be two stones lying in the 

 water, and on my approach it flew away, when to my 

 surprise the two stones also ran along a little distance in 

 the pool ; I looked through my glasses and then found 

 that what I had taken to be two stones was really a 

 Kentish Plover. In the position in which the bird was 

 standing, the white collar which extends round the 

 back of the neck had exactly the appearance of a ripple 



