MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 322 
identity. It had a strong black beak like a crow and feet like a plover. The 
nesting season of this bird must be the middle and end of May, for out of 
about three dozen eggs taken one-third were hard-set, one-third half-set, and 
the rest quite fresh, 
On the 30th May, 1893, we landed on Efat island, another reef island, about 
seven miles from Zeila. Here I found two nests of the spoonbill (Platalea 
leucorodia) with three eggs in each about half-set. The nests were close to- 
gether and built of twigs and dry seaweed on the tops of the mangrove trees, 
and were about five feet from the ground. There was nothing remarkable 
about these nests. They were merely flat platforms of sticks on the top of 
the mangrove trees and were only three or four feet apart. I found one of the 
eggs of this bird laid on the sand on Sad-ad-din Island on the morning of 31st, 
and it was quite fresh although far from any nest, but I suppose there is 
nothing remarkable about this, 
THOS. G. R. FINNY, 
Commander, R. I. M. 
ADEN, 4th June, 1893. 
No. XII1.—THE “GLORIOSA SUPERBA, 
In Dr, Kirtikar’s paper on poisonous plants in our April number he asks 
for further observation of attacks of caterpillars on Gloriosa superba (p. 492). 
The plant isa favourite of mine, and so characteristic of Tanna above 
all other places where I have seen it that it might almost be taken asa 
district badge. 
I have often transplanted the bulbs in the rains, and always had the first 
shoot after transplantation attacked by caterpillars of sizes and colours 
assorted, 
Tn the forests and hedges I never saw it so attacked. I suspect the reason 
is that the gardeners cannot help giving it richer soil and more water than 
it gets at home, producing a more succulent shoot, 
W. F. SINCLAIR, 1.68, 
TANNA, June, 1893. 
XIV.—SIND AS A FIELD FOR THE NATURALIST, 
Extracts from a lecture delivered at the Dayaram Jethmal College, Karachi, 
on the 19th July, 1893, by H, FE, M. James, 1.0.8., Commissioner in Sind, 
In the cold weather Sind is simply a paradise to the lover of birds, During 
the winter of 1872-73, when I was a happy young Deputy Collector of Sehwan, 
in a position of much greater freedom and more outdoor work than at present, 
a great ornithologist, Mr. Allen Hume, visited Sind, and of all the valuable 
series of papers which he published in his periodical “ Stray Feathers,” that on 
the ornithology of Sind is the first in order and one of the first in value, By 
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