732 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. [I^^i''? 



field by creeping along an irrigation ditch and lay-up behind 

 a small fig-tree. The birds were now quiet, and apparently 

 my return had been unobserved. Presently one of the 

 females came into view on ray right, and after many 

 s[)as;modic little runs disappeared behind some tufts of grass 

 and there remained. Feeling sure she must be on the nest, 

 I hastily jumped up, and running towards the spot saw her 

 fly off (she had no time to run as she had without doubt 

 previously done on my approach), but even then I did not 

 at once see the nest, so well did the eggs harmonize with 

 their surroundings. The nest was merely a scrape in the 

 <;omparatively bare drier ground, with a few dead rough, 

 brown straws in it, chiefly at one side. The eggs were four 

 in number, and not more than four to five days' incubated. 

 " The second nest, shown on the accompanying plate, 

 was found on 29 INT ay on a dry ridge among the marshes 

 some twelve miles below Amara, and about a mile from 

 the left bank of the Tigris. On the rushy margin of 

 the adjoining marsh many noisy Chettusias were flying 

 around, but a search for the nests there came to nothing, 

 and the subsequent finding of the nest on the ridge was 

 purely accidental. It was close to a small straggling 

 leafless Lycium bush, and contained four practically fresh 

 eggs. The extent to which this Plover is gregarious in the 

 breeding-season may be gathered from the fact that I have 

 -counted as many as twenty-one around me at one time. 

 Considerable numbers of Kentish Plovers {yEffialUis ule.i- 

 -andrina) were also breeding on the ridges among these 

 ■marshes. Two nests found by me contained three incu- 

 bated eggs each." 



The eggs of CJiettusia Itucura from the al)ove-n;en!ioned 

 nests agree, on the whole, with the figures given by Dresser 

 in 'The Ibis' for 1902 (PI. VI. figs. 1 & 2), the ground- 

 colour, however, being of a decidedly greyer tint. 



Yours truly, 

 38 Morningside Taik, WiLLIAM EvANS. 



Edinburgh. 

 10 February, 1920. 



