ON TfiK NIDIF[CATION OF DROMAS ARDEOLA. 383 



Tungistan, as requested, at the end of May (I was unable to go 

 earlier) with the following result : — I secured about 3 dozen Crab 

 Plovers' eggs, but could only blow a few of them as they were 

 so hard set. The eggs are large and white, about the size of a 

 duck's egg. The bird burrows into the sand hills about four 

 feet and in the shape of a bow. 



" ' The passage runs about a foot below the surface of the 

 ground, and the entrance is usually near or under tussocks of 

 grass or low shrubs — the egg, which is solitary, is laid on 

 the bare soil at the end of the hole without any sign of a nest. 

 ^ " ' There can be no possible doubt about the identity of the 

 bird, as I saw several of them fly out of the nest holes myself, 

 and they are those peculiar black and white birds with a black 

 swallow tail mark on the back, a skin of which I sent you from 

 Ormarra last year to identify.* I have compared the eggs 

 now taken with some of the eggs taken last year, and of which 

 Mr. Huskisson forwarded you a batch, and they correspond ex- 

 actly, so that you were mistaken in supposing they were Shear- 

 water's eggs. I saw no Shearwaters anywhere near the 

 island, and do not think they breed about here. 



" ' I went on a donkey along the shore until I got opposite to 

 the island, and then at low tide waded across to it a distance of 

 about a mile.' 



" Later on I received another letter from the same gentle- 

 man, in which he says : — 



" 'On the 10th June I visited another island about 40 miles down 

 the coast, named ' Allah.' This is probably the one from which 

 Mr. Huskisson procured you the eggs last year, and in addition 

 to two species of Terns that were then breeding (Sterna albi- 

 genu and Sterna anatheta), I saw a lot of Crab Plovers and 

 found numbers of their broken egg-shells/ 



" Mr. Nash further observes that the nests were usually 

 * all in a heap,' by which I conclude he means that several 

 nests are placed close together. 



*' Now, however incredible it may appear to ornithologists that 

 the Crab Plover (Dromas ardeola, Payk.) burrows into the 

 ground, and lays a single white egg, with the above facts be- 

 fore us resulting from observations, made at my request, by 

 two utterly disinterested persons two years running, I cannot 

 see how we can arrive at any other conclusion/' 



Taken in conjunction with von Heuglin's account, there can 

 be no earthly doubt that these eggs ai^e those of the Crab 

 Plovers. 



It would seem that they begin to lay at the end of April 

 or very early in May, and that by the middle of July the 

 * The skin referred to belonged to Dromas ardeola. — E. B. 



49 



