BLACK-HEADED PLOVER 119 
Captain Verner says, that this plover has learnt that 
with judicious damping, the sand and the sun will 
do the hatching, thereby removing the necessity 
of having to spend long days and nights brooding 
over the eggs. It is, however, very curious that 
no other of the large number of birds that lay their 
eggs on the desert sand or hard dry mud-banks 
should do this: and especially curious since these 
birds are first cousins, as one might say, to the 
Spur-winged Plover—which breeds often within a 
few hundred yards of where Black-headed ones are 
—and this bird sits continuously till the young 
are hatched. ‘The egg resembles that of the Red 
Grouse and is not very plover-like in character— 
indeed, some ornithologists will have it this bird is 
not really a Plover, but is more allied to the 
Coursers. 
