BED-KNEED DOTTEREL. 179 



Another specimen, which appears to be a year old, has nearly gained the adult 

 plumage and has the head, sides of face, and hind-neck black with a few brown 

 feathers remaining ; the pectoral band shows similar colours. 



Nestling, three weeks old. The crown and back are brown, each feather being 

 tipped with a lighter shade, which give it a mottled appearance. All the under- 

 surface is white, including the throat, and also a band just behind the crown extending 

 to the back of the eye, and adjoining this white band, but behind it, is a black one 

 extending to the lower part of the eye. The primaries are black slightly tipped 

 with white. The secondaries are also black and tipped boldly with white, and also 

 white at the base, the amount varying in each feather. The lesser and median 

 wing -co verts are mostly white, with a few brown feathers just coming, and a small 

 patch of white on the spurious wing. Humeral feathers dark brown, tipped with 

 a lighter shade. The tail-feathers are black, tipped with lighter brown ; under 

 tail-coverts white, with a few brownish-black spots. Beak yellowish for about 

 half its length, the end being black. The nasal groove is more than half the length 

 of the beak. Feet yellowish and toes black. 



Nestling in down. Appears to be undescribed. 



Nest. None is made ; the eggs are placed in a slight depression in the ground, 

 on the edge of a large inland lagoon. 



Eggs. Clutch, four; ground-colour varies from light to dark stone, thickly 

 covered all over with irregular angular and curved hair-lines, and irregular-shaped 

 markings of black, which cross and recross each other in various directions, the lines 

 vary in thickness from that of a fine hair to that of coarse thread, on the thicker end 

 here and there they loop and form tangles ; axis 29-31 mm., diameter 23. 



Breeding -season. October, November and December. 



Distribution and forms. Confined to Australia. Two subspecies are easily 

 acceptable : E. c. cinctus Gould, from East Australia ; and E. c. mixtus Mathews, 

 from West Australia in its darker upper coloration, less marked chestnut flank 

 feathers and narrower black breast-band. 



SUPEBFAMILY JACANOIDEA. 



A delightful little group of birds apparently developed from a pre-Charadriine 

 source, and recalling in many ways the Wattled Plovers, the coloration, head wattling 

 and bill formation all suggesting their derivation from that basic source, the wing 

 also sometimes being spurred. Their distribution is more or less coincident, being 

 rather more restricted to the Tropical zones of the world. Agreeing in the extreme 

 elongation of the toes and claws and in the possession of the hind-toe and claw 

 similarly elongated they show as much diversity otherwise in evolution as the Wattled 

 Plovers do. That the development of the peculiar feet is adaptive seems proven 

 by the formation of the flexor tendons of the feet, there being no special slip for the 

 extraordinary hallux. 



Osteological items of note are few ; the skull has well-developed basipterygoid 

 processes, but no occipital foramina nor supraorbital grooves. The sternum is 

 singly notched on each side at its posterior margin. The tracheo-bronchial syrinx 

 has a pair of intrinsic muscles, while the caeca are reduced to mere passeriform 

 nipples . Other internal features as recorded seem to agree with the ordinal characters 

 given. 



FAMILY JACANHXE. 

 Genus IREDIPARRA. 



Irediparra Mathews, Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 7, June 17th, 1911, Type (by original 

 designation) : Parr a gallinacea Temminck et Laugier. 



N 2 



