TWO KINDS OF PLOVER 169 



the shells were very brittle, the smaller eggs frequently 

 breaking in one's hand without sufficient reason. 



The eggs of Kittlitz's Plovers seem to escape being 

 broken in a marvellous way, especially when one con- 

 siders that the ground selected for a nesting site is 

 often some piece of waste land, well traversed by both 

 man and beast. One day I walked up to a nest that 

 I knew of, and found an ox lying down on the nest 

 itself, while the Plover was running round the animal 

 in a rather ludicrous manner, frequently stopping and 

 bowing ; the ox took no notice whatever of these little 

 acts of politeness, but calmly continued chewing the 

 cud. When I drove it off the nest I found that one of 

 the eggs was completely broken, but that the other one 

 was quite intact. 



The young of these birds are very difficult to find, 

 as they hide themselves in any bit of cover that may be 

 at hand, and do not move unless called up by the 

 parent birds. They run with great speed, faster indeed 

 than the old birds do, their legs looking very long and 

 stilt-like. I found it impossible to photograph them 

 except in a crouching position, for, once on their legs 

 they would never stand, but would run as hard as they 

 could. The old birds will feign lameness when they 

 have young, but I never saw them do so when they 

 had eggs ; perhaps they consider the latter sufficiently 

 concealed without any further devices. When feigning 

 disablement they fly for a few yards in a very limp sort 

 of way, and then come to the ground, spreading out 

 one wing as though to show how helpless they are, and 

 when they are approached they go through the same 

 performance again, beating the apparently useless wing 



