296 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
The most noticeable instances are among the Hawks and 
Plovers. The Shaheen Falcon, resident in India and Ceylon, 
and, similarly, the Indian Hobby, differ almost solely by their 
smaller size and darker colouring from closely allied migrant 
species, which breed in the north and visit the tropics in winter. 
Herein they follow the general rule, exemplified again and 
again in Indian Ornithology, that where species are found 
over a wide range of latitude, birds bred in the south of that 
range are smaller and darker than those from the north. 
Two migratory species of the genus Mgialitis—. alexandrina 
(the Eastern Kentish Plover), and 4. dubia (the Little 
Ringed Plover) have also produced resident tropical races, 
which breed in Ceylon. Each of these resident Plovers is a 
little smaller and darker than the allied migrant form from 
further north, which visits us during the winter in considerable 
numbers. Again, Himantopus candidus (the Black-winged 
Stilt) isa Ploverine species, in which a very large proportion of 
our Ceylon birds are resident ; whereas over the greater part 
of India the species is migrant, and appears to visit breeding 
srounds in Central Asia. There are, however, well-known 
nesting localities in several parts of India. 
Now, if there is any truth in my theory, we should find 
every gradation between species with resident tropical forms 
and those in which there is little or no loitering. If we take 
a census of Ceylon loiterers, this does seem to be more or less 
the case ; and further, loitering seems to be commonest among 
those species for which our Island affords the most suitable 
summer conditions, and consequently the greatest temptation 
to loiter. 
The ‘‘ Fresh-water Waders,’ of which the commonest are 
the Pintailed Snipe and the Snippet (otanus glareola), do 
not appear to linger much in the Island. By Easter the 
paddy fields, which are their main haunts, have been reaped, 
and in the dry districts are parching up, so there is no great 
inducement for them to stay. There isno doubt that loitering 
Snipe are occasionally seen, and in one or two instances have 
nested in Ceylon. Very probably these are birds which have 
received some slight injury from a stray pellet during the 
shooting season, and so have been incapacitated from making 
