372 NOTES ON CEYLONESE ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY, 



and the bills bad much less red at the base of lower mandible 

 and along the commissure than the adults ; the chests which were 

 darker than those of the adults, were edged with fulvous ; the 

 breast not so rufescent and the chestnut of the under wing- 

 coverts much duller and almost absent under the primaries. 

 There is a visible difference between the plumage of adults of 

 different ages. A very old bird has the throat more buff, the 

 black gorget broader, and the white inferior edge conspicuous; 

 the lores darker, the chest lighter and the breast deeper ; the 

 under wing-coverts brighter and more white at the bases of the 

 marginal feathers of the carpus. 



I always flushed these birds out of the rank mossy vegeta- 

 tion growing on the dried upshores of the tanks; they 

 would fly off, and then, wheeling round high in the air, would 

 fly back, poising themselves over my head and uttering their 

 pleasant sounding note compounded of the chirrup of a Swallow 

 and the cry of a Tern. I imagine their nests were in the grass 

 as they appeared to take no notice of me while I was traversing 

 sandy and bare localities close by. I was however most pro- 

 bably too late for eggs, and they may have had young con- 

 cealed in the grass. Unless some one has found the eggs of 

 this Plover this year it would appear that eggs have as yet never 

 been procured, and in searching for them one has no material 

 to work upon. 



848.— iEgialitis cantianus, Lath. (227.) 



This year again I have found a good many nests of this bird 

 watchino- the hen from the nest, and shooting her when there 

 ■was not a single other bird near, and I find them all in the same 

 plumage as that sent to Mr. Hume and which he says is a 

 young bird.* Out of a number shot this year only one male 

 has a narrow post-frontal black band. 



850. — iEgialitis minutus, Pallas? (228 bis.) 



I have just obtained a Ringed- Plover, new to our Avifauna, 

 but in the present state of the synonymy of these little Plovers 

 will not undertake to say what it is. The Ringed-Plover, 

 which Mr. Holdsworth lays down as M. dubius, and which as far 

 as my experience goes, stays with us until the middle of May, 

 and then leaves for the north, returning in September, has a 

 black bill of from '55 to "6 and a wing of from 43 to 4*65. 

 There is no yellow at the base of the under mandible ; the legs 

 and feet are yellow, and the eyelid, which is not fleshy, is yellow. 

 During the time it is with us it has the lores, cheeks and ear- 

 coverts, a pectoral band encircling the back of the neck blackish 



* I cannot answer for these birds, they may belong to a distinct species, but the 

 particular, specimen sent to me, was an immature cantianus. — Ed. 



