HIMANTOPTTS CANDIDUS. 923 



after remaining in this position for perhaps five minutes they start off and take wide circles, screaming all 

 the while until they return again and hover over their nests. Their note is a harsh but not unmusical 

 monosyllable quickly repeated ; and, as Layard remarks, when a number utter it together the effect is not 

 unpleasant. The young birds as soon as they are able to fly about adopt the same tactics as their parents, 

 and have just the same note as they fly round the breeding-grounds. The sound may perhaps be best rendered 

 by the words gnrneet, gnrneet, gnrneet, uttered in a brassy tone. I have found the diet of this species to consist 

 largely of small shells, particularly a tiny univalve, numbers of which I have detected in a perfect state in the 

 stomachs of specimens, mixed with minute crustaceans and very small insects. Von Heuglin, who notices 

 the sedate manner in which the Stilt stalks about, says it catches flies and beetles quite as well as small fish, 

 with which he has found the stomachs of some crammed. They are hard-lived birds, and, considering their 

 comparatively weak frame, are somewhat difficult to kill, unless hit in the neck. I have known one fly a 

 considerable distance badly wounded before it fell. Out of the breeding-season they are rather shy; but 

 on the nesting-grounds they will fly round and round the intruder's head, displaying but little fear in their 

 anxiety for the safety of their young. Pallas notices a singular habit which he observed in Central Asia, 

 where they were to be seen dancing together, jumping up with expanded wings. 



Nidification. — In the Hambantota district, where large numbers of these birds breed on the driecl-up 

 flats of the leways during the salt-gathering season, the nesting-time is in June and July, at the end of 

 which former month I have found nestlings. On the occasion I refer to, when the young chicks were pursued 

 they took to the water from a little embankment covered with weed, which ran out into the lake, and swam 

 like ducklings ; on the ground they ran with extraordinary swiftness, and it was with the greatest difficulty 

 that I could catch one, so adroitly did it dart hither and thither as I put out my hand to seize it. The nest 

 is usually made in a hole scooped in the ground, or in a little natural hollow about six inches in diameter, 

 and the lining depends on the materials nearest at hand. At Hambantota a nest made on the flat foreshore 

 of the lake was lined with small pieces of shells. At Minery Lake a nest situated on meadow-land, about 

 50 yards from the water, was entirely constructed of dry lichens, with which the grass was mixed, and which, 

 in the wet season, flourished beneath the water. It was rather a deep cup, and contained the usual four 

 eggs. This nest was found on the 10th of July. At Kanthelai, where there was, in 1874, a large breeding- 

 colony of these birds, the nests were all found on an island which was, in the dry season, joined to the main- 

 land. Many nests were built in a circle of flood-wreck, with which the highest part was surrounded, and 

 were composed of the dry weeds, grass-bents, rubbish, &c. of which the " wreck" consisted : some were among 

 scanty grass on the shingly ground, and had no lining save the gravel of which the soil was composed ; others 

 were among the outcropping edges of a stratum of rock, and were made entirely of sticks, mixed with a few 

 grass-stalks ; some, again, were on the flat land, and made of small twigs gathered from the flood-wreck. 

 Long before we reached the place the Stilts came out to meet us, as is their custom, clamouring round our 

 heads with loud cries, and continued this flying backwards and forwards until we reached the egg-ground, 

 when they mostly all flew off, and settling at the edge of the water began to feed. The eggs in the large 

 series I took on this occasion varied much in size, shape, and markings. The usual shape is pyriform, the 

 obtuse end being nicely rounded ; but many were flattened at that end, and others the same at the small part. 

 The largest egg found measured 1'96 by l'29inch, and was of a dark stone-colour, covered with large 

 hieroglyphic-like blotches and streaks and a few light brown irregular lines. In the same nest was a very 

 small egg of the same character, measuring only L59 by l - 28 inch, and very flat at the obtuse end. The 

 prevalent colour was an ochraceous stone tint, the eggs of this type being marked with irregular-edged blotches 

 of blackish sepia, generally more or less confluent at the large end, and mixed with a few underlying marks 

 of a paler tint. Others are stone-yellow, openly blotched, the markings being not so jagged at the edges. 

 Others are quite green, covered throughout with small blots and markings. Some of the stone-yellow eggs 

 were marked with a few large blotches or clouds of blackish sepia. The number varied from three to four in 

 each nest, and they were generally found placed with the small ends together. The variation in size was 

 from 1-96 to l"32inch in length by from l - 29 to 1T7 in breadth. 



In India the breeding-habits of the Black-winged Stilt are somewhat different. The season there is 



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