250 CUESOEIUS. 



in being able to confirm the accounts of Brehm and others of the remarkable way in which 

 it protects its eggs. The narrative is from the pen of Capt. Verner, who met with this 

 bird in the Soudan on the Nile Expedition of 1884-85. 



" The Black-headed Plover is one of the commonest birds of the Nile, and is to be seen 

 in pairs all along the course of the river throughout the year. Very often half a dozen or 

 more pairs may be seen feeding together on the same sandbank. They are very noisy birds, 

 and have a habit of uttering a shrill chattering cry whenever they take wing. Their 

 brightly barred wings are very conspicuous as they skim along the surface of the water. 

 I met with them everywhere during the Nile Expedition, and they were as common 

 above Metemneh as near Assiout. During the months of March and April it was very 

 evident that they were breeding ; but although I searched diligently for their nests I was 

 unsuccessful until the 20th April, when I accidentally came across a clutch of three eggs 

 which were buried in the sand with the exception of a small portion of their tops. At the 

 time I looked upon this as an accident, and as the eggs had a faded appearance I believed 

 them to have belonged to a deserted nest over which the sand had drifted. In this 

 assumption, however, I was mistaken, as I found out some weeks later. On this occa- 

 sion I noticed a Black-headed Plover very busy with something on a sandbank about 

 twenty yards from the water, which it .left after a time and ran down to the stream ; here, 

 after wading about for a moment, it ran up the bank again to the same place and crouched 

 there a minute or so, and then, running for some distance, took wing. Having marked the 

 latter spot I proceeded to it, and following the bird's footmarks ' to heel,' came to the 

 place where it had been so much occupied ; this was easily identified by the number of 

 tracks converging to the one point. At this precise spot I turned over the sand, and about 

 half an inch below the surface discovered three fresh eggs which the artful little bird had 

 completely buried. These were considerably richer in colouring than the clutch I had 

 previously discovered (which, by the way, were hard-set), showing that the process of 

 burying their eggs in the damp sand under the scorching rays of the sun has, as might be 

 expected, a bleaching effect. 



" It is almost unnecessary to say that there was no attempt of any sort at a nest. 

 Taking into consideration the number of enemies from which these little birds have to 

 guard their eggs, it is not very difficult to discover the reasons which prompt them to 

 conceal their eggs in the sand ; still I was unable to account in my own mind for the 

 very energetic movements to and from the water which I had witnessed on this occasion, 

 until I received an account from a cousin, Lieut. George Verner, of the Borderers, who was 

 stationed about forty miles further down the river tnan I was, which solved the mystery 

 as follows :— ' On April 25th I was waiting in a boat alongside of a sandbank, and my 

 attention was attracted by a pair of Black-headed Plovers which kept flitting about quite 

 close to me. I noticed that one of them was continually wetting its breast at the water's 

 edge about ten yards below our boat and then running up the bank to a spot about the 

 same distance inshore of us, when it would squat down and remain about two minutes or 



