.S7. Qiiiii/i)i : Sodic Aviciil/iiral Notes. 165 



it seems that this habit has been evolved of the male parent 

 going oft to seek water, often probably at such distances that 

 it seems strange that any fluid worth having remains after 

 a rtight through the desert air. What Mr. Waldo recorded of 

 Ptefocles alchatus I repeatedly witnessed, for we also got it 

 to breed at Scampston. I had told my man what to expect, 

 but nevertheless so remarkable is the performance, that the 

 first morning when I went down to the aviary, knowing that 

 the eggs were due to hatch, I found him standing in speechless 

 astonishment, the old bird having just run out to the newly- 

 lilled water pan to soak itself at his feet. 



After this I bred Exustus, which has exactly the same 

 habit. Biciiicius has not laid with me, while a pair of Sene- 

 iiitUm, though laying frequently, are confirmed egg-eaters. 



Both ^Ir. Waldo and I have had eggs from Arenarius, but 

 no further success, but he has told me that he has seen males 

 enter the villages in Morocco to soak in the puddles left round 

 the wells, and then fly off. 



All four species that have nested with me have the same 

 way of dividing the duties of incubation, the females, with their 

 plumage harmonizing so wonderfully' with sand and gravel, 

 sitting by day ; the male, which is often more bright-coloured, 

 going on to the eggs for the night. 



In speaking of the Tragopans, three species of which I have 

 kept and bred, the Satyr, Temmincks and Cabots, I can give 

 another example of a habit noted by the aviculturist which 

 could hardly have been observed in a wild state, especially 

 when the subject inhabits such wild difticult ground, and has 

 svTch skulking ways, as the Tragopans. At any rate, it was not 

 known until I recorded it from experience with my birds, that 

 the Tragopans habitually nest in trees. Although, like all 

 gamebirds, they will occasionally drop eggs on the ground in 

 confinement, my birds have never attempted to incubate unless 

 the latter were placed on a nest or platform off the ground. 



Sometimes they have made use of rough platforms of twigs 

 which we have put up for them in yew or spruce trees, sometimes 

 they have appropriated old pigeon's nests. Once a Temminck 

 Tragopan hen laid her eggs in a Stockdove's nest in some ivy, 

 seventeen feet from the ground. How she found the nest I 

 could not imagine. She could only reach it by climbing up a 

 yew tree, and passing along a horizontal branch, from which 

 she could spring into the ivy. 



iijio Apl. I. 



