The Norfolk Plover hi India. 165 



During the course of an afternoon's collecting on the 

 banks and islands of the river Chenab. near Jhang, on 25th May, 

 iQif). one of my companions produced a fresh egg which I at 

 once identified as that of the Norfolk Plover (Ocdicnemus 

 scolopax): unfortunately at the time when he found the nest 

 lie said nothing, but simply took the egg and gave it to me later 

 on when it was too late for the identity to be verified. However, 

 I learned approximately where it had been found, and chancing 

 to be in the same place on 8th June, went to see whether there 

 was any trace of a pair of these Plovers. It may be explained 

 that in the vicinity many pairs of the Great Stone Plover (Esacus 

 recurrirostris) were breeding, and that therefore there was 

 always the chance that the egg found was merely a small egg of 

 that species. The spot where the eggs had been found was a 

 sparse belt of Tamarisk Scrub — thin whippy stems of tamarisk 

 less than the height of a man. These grew on a sandy soil, 

 which was partly covered with a thin deposit of dry alluvial mud 

 deposited during some rise of the river and broken up by the 

 action of wind, sun and passing feet. All round stretched an 

 expanse of dry white sand, dotted here and there with riverain 

 plants. The heat and glare of a sunmier sun on such ground, 

 with the temperature at no in the shade, may be left to the 

 imagination. No sooner had I entered one end of the tamarisk 

 when a Norfolk Plover caught my eye, running quickly in the 

 belt ahead of me. That satisfied me of the identity of the egg 

 in my possession, but I thought it quite probable that in the 

 fortnight which had elapsed the pair might have nested again; 

 so I at one put into execution a plan which has always proved 

 efficacious for the discovery of the eggs of the various birds that 

 breed on these sands. Going hastily up to where the Plover 

 was last seen running I soon found its tracks on the sand and 

 gradually carried them backward, until they coincided with the 

 track of a second bird (which I never saw) ; a few yards further 

 back both tracks led me to the nest close to where I had entered 

 the belt. A single egg was lying in a bare hollow scratched 

 in the sand at the root of a small plant. By this time the 

 Norfolk Plover had taken wing, and its alarm whistle was 

 sounding ahead, echoed by the very similar call of a pair of 

 Esacus which probably also had a nest somewhere in the neigh- 



