Resemblance of South- African Birds. .15 



coloration, which is very great, for further concealment. 

 These birds make delicious eating, and consequently were 

 often hunted by me. When one is wounded and settles a 

 little way off it requires no small amount of patience and 

 perseverance to locate it as it crouches close to the ground 

 amongst the grass. The foregoing observations hold good 

 for C. bicincfiis, which bird can be met with in the O.R.C. 

 consorting with C. rufus. It is, however, a much scarcer 

 species. The Three-collared Plover [Charadrius tricoUaris) 

 is also protectively coloured. They are well endowed with 

 this, as Charles Dixon has also noticed (' Curiosities of Bird 

 Life^); but when it is most useful is during the period of 

 nesting, at which time the bird rsquires this gift of nature, 

 hatching as it does in the open or amongst sparsely growino- 

 weeds (see PI. II.). This applies equally to the Crowned 

 Lapwing (^Stephanihyx coronata), as indeed, we may safely 

 assume, to most if not all of the species of the family under 

 discussion. One notable exception of course is the Cape 

 Painted Snipe (Ehynchcea cajMnsis), the female of which 

 (contrary to the usual course) is a brightly plumaged bird. 

 The reason of this strange case has, as yet, not been 

 ascertained. 



I will now close my remarks on protective resembhince 

 with a very brief reference to the nests and eggs of some 

 South African Birds. 



The eggs of the majority of birds which lay in the open 

 are protectively coloured, viz. those of the Sandgrouse, 

 which are deposited in a slight hollow in the bare sand ; the 

 Plovers &c., which are laid amongst the mud-clots and dried 

 weeds of the water's edge, or amongst the half-dried grass 

 of the veld ; the Game-birds (Francolin, Bustard, &c.), 

 which are deposited amongst the grass. All are tinted with 

 shades which certainly harmonize with the eggs' surroundings, 

 a provision of nature most valuable for the continued existence 

 of the birds as species. 



Lastly, many nests are also constructed in such a manner 

 that they fit in wilh their surroundings, as, for instance, 



