EGGS OF CHARADRIID^. 431 



■wattled plover. But, in including Tasmania in the geogiapliical 

 range for both these birds, I find I am in very good company, for 

 Colonel Legge, in his recent treatise " On the Geographical Dis- 

 tribution of the Australian Limiolce," states with regard to the 

 black breasted plover that "it is not uncommon in the midland 

 districts of Tasmania," while of the wattled species he remarks 

 that it " is an abundant species in many parts of Tasmania." One 

 of my early reminiscences as a boy was of the black-breasted 

 plover. About 1 860, near Yaloke — in those days my grandfather 

 James Pinkerton's property on the AVerribee River — the birds were 

 in flocks of himdreds, and I well remember the good old gentleman 

 pointing out to me a nest under a low shelving rock on the plain, 

 and the timid bird, at our approach, half rising with its back 

 against the roof of the stone, exposed a beautiful clutch of thickly- 

 spotted brownish egg?. 



The black-breasted plover is an early breeder. Eggs have been 

 taken in Riverina in May, in June in South Australia, and in July 

 in Victoria. On the Darling Downs, Queensland, they usually 

 commence to lay in September, where Mr. Lau thinks they breed 

 twice a year. Therefore we may infer that the breeding months 

 in general include May to December, but chiefly the last four 

 months. Here again, like many of the family, laying depends on 

 the wet season, but observers in the interior have remarked it 

 requires less rain to make them lay than the wattled plover, which 

 in years of drought does not lay at all. 



The young in down of the black-breasted or plain plover, which 

 can run almost as soon as hatched, are finely dappled with black 

 and brown, except the back of the neck and under parts, which are 

 light-colored. As soon as fledged the young with the old con- 

 gregate sometimes in immense numbers. 



Why are the eggs of the plover family always placed together 

 with the points inwards ? I have heard two reasons assigned. 

 One is that the keel of the sitting bird would fit exactly into, say, a 

 clutch of four pear-shaped eggs and rest upon the points of the 

 eggs; thus the bird would be comfortably balanced with two on 

 either side. The other reason is that on account of the nest on 

 the ground being a circular hollow the smaller or tapering ends of 

 the eggs must naturally fall or fit into the contracting centre of 

 tiiG citcIg 



EUDROMIAS AUSTRALIS. 

 Australian Dottrel. 



Figure — Gould: Birds of Australia, fol., vol. vi., pi. 15. 



Ramsay^ s Tab. List — Eudromias australis, Gould. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs — Ramsay : P.L.S., N.S.W., vol. 

 VII. (1882). North: Cat. Nests and Eggs, Australian Birds, 

 with fig., app. (1890). 



Geographical Distribution — New^ South Wales, Victoria, South 

 and West Australia. 



