318 Mr. P. R. Lowe on the Crab-Plover. 



of forwarding specimens of this nature is in reality com- 

 paratively simple, one is anxious to make full acknow- 

 ledgment of tlie trouble taken by Dr. Brockman and 

 Mr. Bethel, and all the more so that one fully realises 

 the difficulty there usually is in getting little jobs of this 

 description undertaken, whereby many of the minutise of 

 scientific investigation are disappointingly held up. In 

 this connection, I was very anxious to ascertain if, in the 

 chick of Z);'oma5, the basipterygoid processes and their corre- 

 sponding facets ou the pterygoids would be evident, although 

 there is no trace of them in the adult. Investigation proved 

 beyond doubt that they are present (see below^ under 

 *' Skull of Chick," p. 335) ; but had it not been for the 

 trouble taken by Dr. Brockman, this small, though highly 

 interesting, addition to the sum of our knowledge of 

 evolution might still have long remained a secret. 



Geographical Distribution. — In the ' Catalogue of Birds of 

 the British Museum,^ vol. xxiv. p. 29, the distribution of the 

 Crab-Plover is thus stated : " Shores of Eastern Africa and 

 Madagascar, north to the Red Sea and Arabia, thence east 

 along shores of the Indian Ocean to South India and Ceylon, 

 as well as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands " ; to this 

 statement I have nothing to add. 



Life- Hi -"(t or y. — As the complete record of the Crab- 

 Plover's life-history, as far as it is known, is scattered 

 among many communications upon the subject, it may be 

 worth Avhile to reproduce here a short resume of its habits, 

 Tiie Crab-Plover seems to be a purely littoral species, and 

 throughout its range is only very locally migratory. It 

 appears to be only met with where the shores are sandy, or 

 where arid stretches of wind-blown sand or of coral and 

 shell-debris form a somewhat cheerless fringe to the ocean. 

 Along such sun-baked stretches of sandy littoral the Crab- 

 Plover is met with in small flocks of about eight to ten 

 birds. It lives upon molluscs and crustaceans, its large and 

 compressed cone-like bill forming a trenchant weapon with 

 which to deal with this sort of prey. The Crab-Plover can 

 run quickly, and, curiously enough, its flight reminded 



