20 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Fol. XXIII. 



Here we have eggs in every month but January and August, but 

 the favourite months may be said to be March to July. In con- 

 firmation of this, Mr. E,. M. Adam says that about the Sambhar 

 Lake they breed in great numbers in April and May. Mr. J. 

 Davidson took these eggs from January to June in tne Deccan and 

 Major Cock fotmd them breeding at Nowshera in May and June, 

 whilst Mr. A. Anderson says that in the Doab they breed in March, 

 April and May and finally Col. Butler found their eggs at Dungar- 

 war (55 miles Sou.th of Deesa ) in March and May. On the other 

 hand Davidson found them breeding in Western Khandesh in Fe- 

 bruary, in the same month Col. Butler found their eggs in Belgaum 

 and Mr. Hastings took their eggs in October in Etawah, S. W. 

 United Provinces. 



Col. Bingham wrote to me that he took their eggs near Mhow 

 in January and Mr. E. G. Phythean Adams also wrote to me to the 

 effect that he found them laying round about Poona in December, 

 January and February. 



The only conclusion one can draw is that these birds breed more 

 or less throughout the year but that in North and Central India 

 more breed from March to July than in other months, whilst fur- 

 ther South they breed earlier, the majority in February and March, 

 It is probable also that most birds lay twice in the year at least. 



The eggs are laid in a depression in the soil, either natural or 

 scratched out by the birds themselves. In the very great majority 

 of cases there is no lining of any sort whatsoever, but Adams, 

 Anderson and one or two other observers have found a certain 

 amount of grass placed in the hollow as a sort of rough lining. 

 How rare, however, it is to find such, is shown by the fact that in 

 the enormous number of nesting places found by Hume, Davidson 

 and the Khan Bahadur, never once did any of them ever find any 

 lining placed in the depression below the eggs. 



Three is the number of eggs almost invariably laid, but occasion- 

 ally two only are incubated. The stories, however, of five and four 

 eggs being laid by the same bird are almost certainly the result of 

 two birds laying in the same nest-hole or of some mistake on the 

 part of the collector. Both birds take part in incubation, and as the 

 eggs are laid in great open plains, generally with no scrub, grass or 

 stone to shield them from the sun, the birds have to cover the eggs 

 in the heat of the day to prevent them being killed, if not cooked 

 by the sun. Now and then the birds may take advantage of the 

 cover afforded by a tuft of grass or small bush, or she may lay her 

 eggs in amongst stones which partially shield them from the sun, 

 but she never makes her nest-hole in among bushes and jungle as 

 does Pterocles fasciatus. Hume says the haunts it loves best as 

 breeding sites are scattered stubble or fallow, or newly ploughed 

 .fields rather than the large semi-desert plains surrounding them. 



