'230 WHITE -Notes upon tit* Black-bvttxsted Horn- 



Still a few pairs nest every season upon my property, and 

 I give them all the protection within my power. The Black 

 breasted Plover is one of our most useful birds, for it lives al- 

 most entirely upon insect life. Although found very often upon 

 low swampy country it does not confine itself to this habitat for 

 it can be seen in all manner of places, I have met with it in the 

 dry interior, upon fallow land, in grassy valleys of the Ranges, 

 and on the stony tableland country, as well as on the vast ex- 

 panses of dry sand. 



I do not look upon this bird as a migrant, but as one which 

 shifts from place to place according to the food supply. I 

 have noticed that it is very plentiful when crickets and 

 grasshoppers are abundant. 



It is a very intelligent bird, knowing when it is protected, 

 and becoming very confident and tame under these conditions. 

 Next to man the fox is now its greatest enemy, and there is no 

 doubt great numbers of birds and their eggs fall victims to the 

 wily fox, who works the ground systematically for their nests. 

 The Plover moves about both by day and night, and it must take 

 much of its food at night time, when many noxious insects 

 are abroad. It is a very wary bird when molested, and 

 can detect the approach of human beings long before they are 

 seen, and will give the warning call, very much after the man- 

 ner of the Spurwing (Lobibyw novaehollandiae). The Black- 

 breasted Plover is often heard at night, flying high, it is no 

 doubt then shifting its quarters. Yet I have known this bird 

 to remain within the radius of a mile for many montbs, and 

 long after it has brought out its brood; it moves about 

 as a rule in parties of ten or a dozen, but I have seen over thirty 

 at times. 



The eggs are from three to four in number, but in 

 dry seasons I have known it to incubate two eggs ; at times 

 the eggs are laid on the bare ground without the semblance of 

 a nest, while at others a few sticks or stones are placed around 

 the eggs. Yet again, in rare instances a. snug nest is 

 formed of dry grass and rootlets. 



The accompanying photographs illustrate the last two 

 cases, in the one with three eggs a few sticks are placed around, 

 in the other the nest was made in the centre of an old dry flat- 

 tened out lump of horse manure, and the eggs were difficult to 

 detect. It is an early breeder, for I have often seen nests 

 in June, and in the case of the illustration of the four eggs, 

 they were well incubated when seen on July 3rd. The young 

 leave the nest very soon after being hatched, and they are of a 

 dull brownish black in colour, and so like the earth on which 



