4 SCOLOPACID^. 



Mr. A. O. Hume gives the following account of the breeding habits of this 

 species in Upper India and in Ceylon * : — 



" The only places in Upper India where I have seen the Stilt breeding are in 

 and about clusters of salt-works situated in the Goorgaon District, about thirty- 

 five miles south of Delhi, known collectively as the Sultanpoor Works 



" The birds are seen in small numbers throughout the year, but congregate 

 in great numbers towards the middle of April about the works, which consist of 

 brine-wells and many hundred acres of shallow, rectangular, evaporating-pans 

 from 100 to 200 feet square, and from 6 to 10 inches deep. These pans are 

 merely depressions dug in the soil and lined with cliunam or fine lime obtained by 

 bui'ning JcunJcer, a nodular concretionary limestone found in beds near the surface 

 more or less throughout the plains of Upper India. Small strips of ground from 

 a foot to five or six feet broad divide the pans, and on the margins of these, or 

 even in the beds of disused pans, where only a little brine ever stands, the StUts 

 build their nests. 



" They collect together small pieces of kunker, or the broken limelining of the 

 pans, into a circular platform from seven to even twelve inches in diameter and 

 from two to three inches in height ; on this again they place a little dry grass, on 

 which they usually lay four eggs, but not unfrequently only two or three. They 

 begin to lay, according to season, towards the end of April or the beginning of 

 May ; and by the beginning of June numbers of young are to be seen about, and 

 by the 1st July most of the eggs that remain are hard-set. The majority of the 

 birds lay during June, earlier or later according to season. 



" The temperature of the nest at this time in the full sun probably averages 

 quite 1 40° Fahrenheit. 



" The birds have their choice of sites, though on what this depends I could 

 not find out. Not one nest was found in two successive seasons at Balpoor or 

 Kuliawas ; very few at Sultanpoor. On the other hand, at Moobarikpoor (and all 

 the works are exact facsimiles one of the other) the nests were in some places 

 crowded to an inconceivable degree. On one strip, about 3 feet wide and 100 

 feet long, there were twenty-seven nests on one margin and eleven on the other, 

 besides five nests of the Red-wattled Lapwing. So accustomed were the birds to 

 the workmen walking up and down the middle of this strip that many of the birds 

 never moved, though we passed within a few inches of them, and those that 

 did move merely stalked leisurely a few paces away into the salt-pans on either 

 side 



* ' Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds,' 2nd edition, vol. iii. pp. 353-356. 



