PHENOMENAL FORESIGHT 169 



equally or more often the branch of a tree or the 

 broad leaf of a palm ; any ' slight depression is 

 chosen if possible, but often even this is dispensed 

 with. The bird covers and leaves its egg very 

 gingerly, and is credited with such foresight as, when 

 laying on a leaf, so to time the hatching that if the 

 leaf withers and droops, by the time the slope has 

 become too dangerous, the egg will have hatched. 

 The chick has great powers of holding on, having 

 particularly long middle claws ; the hind toe is 

 also of normal size, not rudimentary as in other 

 Terns, and the feet are only half-webbed. As the 

 plumage is also scanty for a water-bird, and the 

 bird nests inland and even eats fruit, we have here 

 perhaps a primitive Gull-type. 



Other birds that simply lay their eggs on the 

 spot chosen without any nest are the Nightjars 

 proper, though the Owlet- Nightjars lay in holes 

 in trees, and the Frog-mouths, members of the 

 same family as the last {Podargidce) make nests, of 

 sticks in the case of the well-known Australian 

 More-pork (Podargus cuvieri) and of a curious pad 

 of down on a branch in the case of the Eared 

 Frog- mouths {Batrachostomus). 



Simple deposition of the eggs on the ground is 

 unusual in birds of the type to which Nightjars 

 belong, but is not uncommon among running or 

 swimming birds; Divers, Sand-Grouse, Bustards, and 

 many of the Game-birds, Plovers and Terns making 

 either no nest at all, a mere " scrape," or a very 

 meagre collection of bents, leaves, etc. The habit 



