346 CHABADRIIILE. 



off to a distance, sitting down and watching the bird with glasses. 

 The eggs vary from two to three, placed in similar situations to 

 the eggs of L. indicus ; no nest to speak of, a small depression, the 

 soil slightly broken up round the nest ; eggs often plastered with 

 dried mud, but this I take it from the bird sitting on them with 

 muddy shanks in the rainy weather.' 7 



Colonel Butler says : " Belgauin, 29th April. I found a nest 

 containing four eggs about to hatch on a perfectly bare maidan. 

 It consisted of a shallow saucer-like depression in the ground, 

 with a slight embankment round it formed by the earth that had 

 been scratched out, and with one or two stalks of dry grass at the 

 bottom of it, which may have come there by accident or may have 

 been placed there by the old birds as a lining. 



" The old bird sat very close, allowing me to ride up to within 

 a yard of her without moving, and when she did leave the nest, 

 which was not until after I had remained staring at her for some 

 seconds, she did not take wing but raised herself slowly off the 

 eggs and walked away. 



" On the 1st of May I got another nest at Belgaum, containing 

 four incubated eggs/' 



Messrs. Davidson and Wenden, writing of the Deccan, say : 

 " Common ; breeding from May to July." 



Mr. J. Davidson remarks that in Western Khandesh he obtained 

 the eggs of this Plover both in the rains and in the cold weather ; 

 and Mr. C. J. W. Taylor took the eggs in Mysore on the 17th of 

 May. 



Colonel W. V. Legge, writing from Ceylon, remarks of this 

 Plover, that " it breeds in June and July, nesting on open ground 

 near the shores of lagoons, salt lakes, &c." He says, " I have 

 found its nest near the sandy shores of the salt-pans of Hamban- 

 tota ; it consisted of a hollow, stamped in the sandy ground, 

 without any lining whatever ; it was about a hundred yards from 

 the edge of the water, and contained four pyriforin eggs, less con- 

 tracted at the smaller end than those of our Lapwing at home, and 

 of a rich stone-yellow ground-colour, blotched evenly all over with 

 three shades of sepia, the darkest blots being the largest ; beneath 

 these were spots of faded bluish grey. Axis, 1'48; diameter, 

 1*14." 



The eggs of this species are in shape of the true Plover type. 

 The ground-colour is buffy or pale greenish or olive stone-colour, 

 and they are pretty thickly studded with spots, streaks, and 

 moderate-sized blotches of deep brown, interspersed with spots and 

 streaks of pale olive-brown and dingy inky purple. The eggs are 

 of course devoid of gloss. They are markedly smaller, more neatly 

 marked, paler and yellower, as a body, than the eggs of L. indicus 

 or H. v entrails 



In length they vary from 1-35 to 1-57, and in breadth from 1-02 

 to 1*1 ; but the average of twenty-two eggs is 1-45 by 1'07 

 nearly. 



