'58 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



gales. Everywhere to the south of the island stretches out a 

 huge reef, just above water at low tide, and dotted over with 

 channels, pools, and natural tanks. 



To this reef I devoted myself, as from far off I had descried 

 along the reef face large flocks of black and white Waders that 

 ; could be no other than those curious birds the so-called, and 

 correctly called, Crab-plovers (Dramas ardeola). 



To reach these birds, whose acquaintance I so earnestly desired 

 to make, involved a trudge of nearly a mile in soft, pure white, 

 deep coral sand, glaring in the full rays of the afternoon sand, 

 and so hot that it positively burnt one's boots and blistered one's 

 legs; after this there was more than half a mile of reef to 

 cross, a perfect clieval de /rise of living coral, continually 

 giving way under foot and letting one's wretched extremities 

 down with a jerk for half a yard through a forest of knife 

 edges ; innumerable natural canals and ponds, some nearly 

 up to one's breast, had to be waded through, the salt water 

 getting into every cut and scratch, and stinging with renewed 

 vigor at each immersion ; my back was aching terribly, and I 

 foresaw that if ever I did get to the sea-face of the' reef I should 

 have to float back with the rising tide ; but this was my first 

 real introduction to the Crab-plover ; I held on somehow 

 and got to within about 150 yards of a flock. Directly I 

 tried to get nearer, off they flew. Then I tried another flock 

 with a similar result, and then another and another. There 

 was not the smallest cover, no possibility of a stalk. Before one 

 could possibly get within shot, they always rose, flew along the 

 sea-face of the reef, for about £ of a mile and then lit again, 

 scattering themselves on the reef to a distance of perhaps a 

 couple of hundred yards from the sea- face. I watched them 

 carefully with binoculars from about 150 yards off. They ran 

 hither and thither, moving as a rule rather steadily and 

 demurely, picking up food about the reef, and in all their 

 movements and actions recalling precisely those ofJEsacus recur- 

 virastris, which I have so often watched on the banks of our Indian 

 rivers, and which I take to be their nearest ally, everything 

 that has been written to the contrary notwithstanding. 



On the reef were a multitude of Turnstones, of which I shot 

 several ; of the larger and Pallas' Sand-plovers [Jtj. Geoffrayi 

 and mongolicus), Grey Curlews, (N. lineatusf), of the Common 

 Sandpiper, and some others that I could neither shoot nor 

 discriminate, besides a few Reef-herons, both blue and white 

 (Z>. sacra, and Greyi), As usual a pair of Sea-eagles (C. leuco- 



