076 ESACUS EECURVIROSTRLS. 



sundown, when"they sally off to feed, uttering their singular musical whistle as they fly about in the fast- 

 fading twilight. A pair frequented the little island close to the entrance to the Trincomalic fort, and in the 

 evening gave signs of their presence by flying over the esplanade backwards and forwards to the sands in Back 

 Bay, frequently whistling as they crossed and recrossed the ground. On moonlight nights they were to be 

 heard all night long, as they wandered here and there, startling the stillness of the night with their kreee, 

 fcreee — kree, krekrekrekre, the first syllables being long drawn and the. last gradually increasing in speed 

 until the note ceased. They are wary birds both by day and night, but they will allow a boat to approach 

 quite close sometimes before taking flight. They fly in a straight and even course, taking short quick strokes 

 of the pinions. They subsist on ci'abs and mollusca, as well as insects, and feed almost entirely at night, for 

 I have shot examples in the afternoon with their stomachs perfectly empty. An individual which was winged 

 from my canoe off Gunpowder Island, Trincomalic, when I commenced to pursue it took to the water, swimming 

 well, and when approached uttered loud craking cries of alarm, and dived freely, making its way along beneath 

 the surface with ease. 



In India, as above remarked, they confine themselves to the beds of rivers, especially, writes Mr. Hume, 

 those in which rocky or stony banks or islands crop up. 



Nidification. — This species, I am informed by Mr. G. Simpson, of the Indian Telegraph Department, 

 breeds in the island of Manaar in February. In the following mouth I found it nesting in the Jaffna peninsula 

 near Pootoor and at Aripu. I was unable to find its eggs at either place, and imagine, from the anxious 

 manner in which the birds flew round me, uttering their piping whistle, that they had young. A pair of 

 eggs were sent to me in March 1877, just before leaving the island, which were taken in the shingly island in 

 the Kanthelai tank. They were found, I believe, in a depression in the sand and gravel not far from the 

 water's edge. One is oval in shape, aud the other a rather broad, somewhat pointed oval. The ground- 

 colour is greenish drab : one is openly clouded with longitudinal patches of several shades of blackish sepia, 

 overlying inky-grey smears and blotches, some of the dark markings beiug of a linear shape ; the other, which 

 is slightly paler in colour, is rather closely marked with longitudinal washed-out blotches of the same colour, 

 intermingled with streaky scribblings, spottings, and irregular tracings of the same hue, all of which are 

 pretty evenly distributed over the entire surface of the egg. They measure 2 - 25 by 1*7 and 2 - 19 by 171 inch. 



In India the Curved-billed Plover breeds in river-beds where there are banks of sand and shingle or 

 "outcrops of rocks mingled with patches of sand." Captain Marshall, however, once found the nest in a 

 ploughed field in the Sharunpoor district, three quarters of a mile from the nearest water. The nesting-season 

 lasts from March until June. On the Jumna, where Mr. Hume took many eggs, they were deposited in 

 shallow depressions in the sand in places surrounded by rocks, and sometimes beneath edges of the same. 

 The eggs, which are two in number, vary, he remarks, from a pale cream-colour, through an earthy drab-colour, 

 to a somewhat pale olive-brown, the markings consisting of "all possible combinations of blotches, streaks, 

 lines, &c. (in some cases thickly sown over the whole egg, in others sparsely distributed) of every shade of 

 olive and umber-brown, in some becoming almost black." The average of twenty eggs is said to be 2 - 15 by 

 1 "6 inch, the largest measuring 2 - 32 by 1*7. Mr. Anderson has known a wounded bird remove the eggs she 

 had been sitting on before being fired at. 



