QUAIL AND WEAVER-BIRD 217 



those holes will be covered with flocks of these birds, 

 perhaps seven or eight or more species intermingled. 

 Small fish, fresh-water mussels, and doubtless worms and 

 minute crustacians, are the prey they seek in such spots. 



The common grey plover of Europe (jCharadius helveti- 

 cus) is also the common species of the Westralian coasts, 

 and differs in habits from its allies mentioned above in that 

 it is often met with in the interior on dry barren plains, 

 and especially on hills and elevated spots, where I have 

 occasionally found its four spotted eggs laid in cup-shaped 

 hollows lined with a little fine grass. About twenty birds 

 is the usual number in a flock, and it is rarely that more 

 than a hundred are seen together. Whether it is from 

 scarcity of food, or for some other reason, I cannot tell, 

 but this species, in common with others of the family, often 

 break up their flocks into parties of four or five (family 

 parties, perhaps), and seem to wander to the very sources 

 of the streams. I have found them at water-holes three 

 hundred miles at least from the coast ; and the grey 

 plover may be seen on some of the most desert-like of the 

 western plains. 



Besides the common quails, which are found nearly 

 everywhere in Australia, and are too well known to require 

 description here, there is a bird called by the Swan River 

 settlers the painted quail {Hcemipodius melinatus), found on 

 both the mainland and the small islands off* the coast ; and 

 I think all along the north coast. At any rate I have seen 

 it near Port Darwin and in Queensland. On some of the 

 Abrolhos islands it was abundant at the time of my visit 

 — more so than on the mainland. It is one of those birds 

 called by modern naturalists bustard quails ; but it seems 

 to me to be more nearly allied to the coursers or plovers. 

 Its breeding habits are quite different from those of the 

 quails, and its eggs are very dissimiliar to those of that 

 family — they are four in number, and thickly blotched and 

 spotted. On the Abrolhos the birds are scattered all over 

 the islands they inhabit ; on the mainland they generally 

 run in flocks of about sixty, and their food consists chiefly 

 of insects, but they also eat grain, seeds, and fruit. They 



