332 (EDICNEMIDJE. 



in other places scarcely a specimen is to be met with or even heard, 

 for I have often heard without seeing them. 



" It breeds from April to June, laying two eggs of a light nan- 

 keen colour, profusely spotted, speckled, blotched, and streaked 

 with deep blackish brown, on the ground, generally on the grass 

 at the foot of, and just under the shelter of, a bush. The eggs are 

 large for the size of the bird, rather lengthened in shape, and more 

 or less pointed at the thin end. 



" The young, unlike others of the Plover tribe, seem very help- 

 less and unable to run till quite fledged. On the 23rd May I 

 noticed one of these birds sneaking away from a low mola-bush 

 on a sandy plain, and on going to look I found a young bird nearly 

 fledged sitting in a slight hollow in the ground, evidently the nest ; 

 though able to stand and to walk about, it made no attempt to 

 escape, but permitted itself to be caught at once. 



" On the 13th June I found two eggs on the grass under a 

 keekur bush, a little patch being slightly cleared and a few dead 

 leaves collected. The hen was sitting on the eggs as I rode up, 

 and the cock bird was standing pluming himself a few yards off. 

 On seeing me they both bent down their heads and crept quickly 

 and noiselessly off through the grass to the other side of the bush, 

 but too late to save their eggs, for I had seen the female before she 

 saw me." 



Captain Beavan remarks that this species is " not uncommon in 

 the uplands of Manbboom, where I found them breeding in April. 

 According to my experience they lay but two eggs, although they 

 may possibly lay three as stated by Dr. Jerdon. I have only ob- 

 served this species singly or in pairs, never in flocks as described 

 by him." 



Mr. W. Blewitt writes : " I took three nests of this species 

 near Hansie during the latter half of the month of April ; two of 

 the nests contained two fresh eggs each ; the third contained three 

 partly-incubated ones. 



" The eggs were placed in a trifling hollow in the ground scraped 

 by the birds. In one case there were a few blades of dry grass 

 under the eggs ; in the others the eggs were laid on the bare 

 ground with a few pebbles arranged as a kind of border around the 

 edge of the hollow. 



" In one case the eggs were laid in the bed of a dry jheel pretty 

 thickly sprinkled with tufts of dry coarse grass ; in the others a 

 bare open plain was the situation chosen." 



Major Bingham informs us that this species breeds both at 

 Allahabad and at Delhi in April, May, and June ; and Mr. Gr. Reid, 

 referring to Lucknow, states that he found a nest on the 6th 

 May. 



Colonel Butler writes : " I found two slightly-incubated eggs 

 of the Stone-Plover near Deesa on the 29th February, 1876, under 

 a low tamarisk-bush in the dried-up bed of a river. I took another 

 nest at Dungarwar, 30 miles N. of Ahmedabad, on the 12th March, 

 1876, containing two fresh eggs ; the eggs were placed under a 



