336 ESACIN A. 
Bill black ; irides deep-brown ; legs reddish-black. 
Head, including the long crest, face as far as the middle of 
the eye, and a broad band from the base of the lower mandible 
down the chin and throat, glossy black; a white line from 
behind the eye, bordering the black and meeting its fellow behind ; 
sides of the back and neck pale-ashy, gradually passing into the 
brownish-ashy of the back, scapulars and wing-coverts, and 
forming a pectoral band, between which and the black throat 
is a broad white space ; quills black, white at their base, the white 
increasing in extent to the last secondary, which is merely black- 
tipped ; primary and secondary-coverts white ; the shoulder black ; 
winglet white; tail-feathers white, with a broad black tip; 
upper tail-coverts white; abdomen white, with an interrupted 
black band in the centre. 
The occurrence of the Spur-wing Lapwing within our limits 
is doubtful; a specimen is recorded from Upper Sind. 
Sus-FaAmMILy, Esacinee. 
Of large size ; bill very strong and thick, dilated both above 
and below, and compressed; gonys more or less strongly angu- 
lated ; no hind-toe ; legs long. 
Genus, Esacus, Less. 
Bill long, sub-recurved, strong, convex above, considerably 
compressed ; the base thick and rounded; edges sharp, notched 
towards the tip ; nares broad, linear, advanced, in a wide groove 
that extends from the base to the tip of the culmen ; otherwise 
as in Gidicnemus. 
Esacus recurvirostris, Cwv. 
858.—Jerdon’s Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 652; Butler, Guzerat ; 
Stray Feathers, Vol. IV, p. 14; Deccan, Stray Feathers, Vol. 
IX, p. 427; Murray’s Vertebrate Zoology of Sind, p. 231; 
Swinhoe and Barnes, Central India ; Ibis, 1885, p. 133. 
THE LARGE STONE PLOVER. 
Length, 19 to 20; expanse, 36; wing, 11; tail, 45; tarsus, 
3°25; bill at front, 2°75 ; bill from gape, 3°5. 
Bill greenish-yellow, black at tip; irides bright pale-yellow ; 
legs yellow. 
General color above brownish sky-grey ; forehead white; eye- 
brow, ear-coverts, and moustaches blackish; shoulders, winglet, 
some of the outermost wing-coverts, quills, and tip of tail, 
blackish; wings and tail irregularly but broadly banded with 
white ; beneath, with the lower surface of wings and tail, white. 
The Large Stone Plover is a common permanent resident in 
Sind ; it occurs much more rarely in the other portions of our 
district. It breeds about March. The eggs, two in number, are 
deposited in a depression in the sand in river beds; they are 
