964 LOBIVANELLUS INDICUS. 



sportsman, as they are always vociferously given out after having been fired at and missed ! At night it is a 

 most watchful bird, and ever ready in the jungle to alarm slumbering nature around it with utterance of these 

 cries. When watching for deer, on a moonlight night, behind an ambush, or, as it is called in North Ceylon, 

 a " shade,"of newly-cut boughs, and employed in the somewhat monotonous sport (?) of intently gazing through 

 a small opening in my lair at a water-hole some fifteen yards in front of me, I have had these troublesome birds 

 run close up, and, finding me out, rise with loud cries of " Pity to do it ; " and whether it was a pity or not to do 

 it, I used to find that after this alarm the deer gave the water-hole a wide berth, and did not come to drink ! Layard 

 alludes to this habit of annoying the native tank-shooters, by whom, it may be remarked, the market at Trinco- 

 malie used to be supplied with venison ; and in India the same notes have gained for it its popular name of " Did 

 you do it?" Jerdon observes that in the "south of India it is recorded to sleep on its back with its legs upwards ; 

 and the Indian proverb ' Tititira se asman thama jaega' &c., ' Can the Pewit support the heavens,' is applied 

 to a man who undertakes some task far above his strength." The flight of the Indian Lapwing very much 

 resembles that of our own home bird, being performed with vigorous beatings of its ample wings ; but it does 

 not twist and tumble about in the air so much as the latter. Its food consists of worms, crickets, beetles, and 

 aqueous insects ; and it may not uufrequently be found in newly-burnt clearings in the low country jungles 

 searching for larva; &c. in the charred and blackened soil. Col. Sykes records the finding of corn in its 

 stomach. When pressed by hunger it feeds on offal even, concerning which degraded taste Mr. Hume writes, 

 in speaking of its habits during a drought in Jodhpore : — "Strange to say, the Lapwings had taken up their 

 abode, like the madmen of old (and mad they must have beeu to cling to such a place as Jodhpore was when I 

 was there), 'amongst the tombs.' Outside each village is a bovine Golgotha, to which all the carcases of the 

 cattle which die are, after being skinned, dragged — first, apparently, to ensure a pleasant smell (from a native 

 point of view), and, secondly, for the delectation of the village clogs, the jackals, and vultures. Now at this 

 time of drought it was invariably amongst the skeletons, generally inside the ribs of some hapless and diseased 

 bullock, that I found L. indicus (a veritable disgrace, as I remarked to some of them, to their genus), feeding 

 on fly-maggots and small fragments of putrid flesh." 



Nidification. — This Lapwing breeds in the Western Province in May, June, and July, and in the latter 

 month I have taken its nest at Himille tank, not far from Anaradhapura. It chooses an elevated spot in a 

 meadow, a bund in a paddy-field, or a dry place in a marsh or weedy tank, and scrapes out a hollow in the 

 soil, which is sometimes lined with little rounded pellets of mud, which have the appearance of being made by 

 the bird with its bill ; amongst these are mixed some dried grass-stalks cut up into short pieces, and tiny twigs or 

 fragments of leaves. The interior of the nest is sometimes of the same colour as the eggs, which are gene- 

 rally three in number and of a stone-grey or olive colour, much stained or clouded with dusky bluish grev, 

 and over this thickly covered with short streaks, blotches, spots, and markings of all shapes of blackish sepia, 

 which are thickest round the large end. They are pyriform in shape, and rather small for the size of the bird. 

 A small series-ia my possession measure 1*62 to 1*71 inch iu length, and 115 to T2 in breadth. When 

 frightened from her eggs the parent bird stealthily leaves the nest and flies to a little distance, alighting and 

 running to and fro ; but when young are concealed in the grass the old birds are very noisy, flying round 

 and round with loud cries. In India, particularly in the wet season, when its usual haunts are flooded, this 

 Plover resorts to all kinds of places to nest, and manifests an utter disregard of man. Mr. Hume, after men- 

 tioning that it breeds throughout India in the plains and hills up to 4000 feet, writes, in 'Nests and Eggs/ as 

 follows : — 



" The breeding-season lasts from March to August, and I rather suspect that they have two broods ; but 



I am not sure, for the great bulk of the birds lay in April, May, and June They lay almost anywhere, 



provided there is water somewhere in the neighbourhood. Banks of rivers, edges of swamps or ponds, well- 

 irrigated gardens, are their favourite nesting-sites until the rain falls ; after the rains have well commenced 

 they like drier situations. It is very usual then to find their eggs amongst the ballast of a railway (often in 

 such a situation that the footboard of every carriage passes over the bird's head) or on the top of a hed°-e- 

 bank, in an old brick-kiln, or in any well-drained situation ; in fact a pair that had frequented my garden all 

 the cold season at Mynpooree, laid on the top of my flat-roofed two-storied house and hatched their voun«- 

 there, and the second day had the young down in the garden. How they carried them the 40 feet from the 



