144 A. L. V. Mannichr. 



Till the laying is finished both birds will faithfully accompany 

 each other, but as soon as the brooding begins, the males will 

 join in smaller flocks and wander around on the table lands and 

 at the beaches of the fresh waters, often in company with Tringa 

 camitiis and Strepsilas înterpres. They usually left the country some 

 days before the middle of July. 



I secured several males for examination but never found the 

 least sign of a breeding spot. 



Old females can also be found in company with the males, 

 though in far smaller numbers; as they have breeding spots, they 

 may be birds disturbed in their breeding. 



By excellent tactics the breeding female understands to keep 

 secret the hiding-place of the nest. She will generally leave the 

 nest so early and secretly, that even the most experienced and at- 

 tentive eye does not percieve it. 



She rushes rapidly from the nest with her head pressed down 

 against her back executing some peculiar creeping movements quite 

 mute, and hidden between stones and plants; following natural 

 hollows in the ground she will first appear in a distance of at least 

 100 meters from the nest. By means of short, snarling and faint 

 cries and now and then by flying up, she will then try to turn 

 ones attention to herself. 



She will often settle for some moments on small stones, clods of 

 earth and similar places, from which she again will rush away 

 with her dorsal feathers erected and her wings hanging down and 

 always in a direction opposite to that, in which her nest is situated. 



Yet I succeeded relatively easily in finding the nest, when through 

 my field glass I followed the movements of the bird, lying in an 

 ambush some hundred meters from the place, where I supposed 

 the nest to be. During the day, and when the weather was fine, 

 the bird would about half an hour continue to run and fly around, 

 all the while snarling anxiously until she at last — when consi- 

 dering herself not to be watched — mute and in a zig-zag run 

 hurries to her nest, on which she immediately lies down. 



At night or in inclement weather the cold will make her dis- 

 inclined to leave the nest for a longer while, and my observations 

 and discoveries of nests could therefore most easily be undertaken 

 in such cases. 



Though more rarely, it would happen, that breeding birds in- 

 stead of leaving the nest in good time were lying so close, that 

 one could nearly catch them by hand. She would then keep her- 

 self quite motionless with her body pressed down in the nest and 

 her neck and head stretched out; lying in this position she is ex- 



