328 DEOltADIDyi:. 



Nothing, however, is more certain now than that the Crab-Plover 

 lays one and not two eggs ; that this egg is quite abnormally large 

 for the bird, and pure white in colour ; and, lastly, that it lays this 

 egg not in a small depression in the open, but at the extreme end 

 of a burrow running for some four feet into the sand. 



These remarkable facts, which naturally again raise the question 

 as to M'hat the real aiBnities of this species can be, were first set 

 forth by Von Heuglin, and have now been fully confirmed by 

 Colonel E. A. Butler. 



Colonel Butler writes : — "I think I am at last in a position to 

 prove that the large white eggs which 1 sent you last year belong 

 to the Crab-Plover. 



" In order that you may be satisfied as to their identity, I will 

 relate fully the circumstances under which they were taken. 



" About the 8th June 1878, my friend Mr. Huskisson, Super- 

 intendent, Indo-European Telegraph Department, who was then at 

 Bushire, kindly sent some natives to see if there were any sea-birds 

 breeding on one of the islands off Tungistan about 40 miles east of 

 Bushire, Persian Gulf, and they returned with a batch of large 

 white eggs and two skins (a nestling in down and an adult) of 

 Dramas ardeola, saying that they bad found numbers of these birds 

 breeding on the island, and that the eggs were laid in holes in the 

 sand-hills. The nests they reported as being a good deal scattered, 

 and the eggs as a rule much incubated, many being on the point of 

 hatching. 



" On receiving these eggs, I must say I was most incredulous, 

 and thought, as you suggested, that in all probability they be- 

 longed to the Gulf Shearwater {Pvjffinus persicus, Hume). How- 

 ever, the skins of the adult and nesthng Crab-Plover showed that 

 that species bred there, so I resohed to make arrangements to 

 have the island explored again about May the following year. In 

 the meantime I received another letter from Mr. Huskisson, saying 

 that he had re-visited the island on the 13th July himself, and dug 

 out many of the nests which were in holes in the sand-hills, and 

 that most of them contained a single young bird, almost ready to 

 leave the nest. 



" The following year, 1879, accorcUng to arrangement, my 

 friend Mr. Nash, of the Telegraph Depai'tment, visited an island 

 named Montafie, about 20 miles east of Bushire, at the end of 

 May, and made the following report : — ' I visited the island off 

 Tungistan, as requested, at the end of May (I was unable to go 

 earlier), with the following result. I secured about three dozen 

 Crab-Plovers' eggs, but could only blow a few of them as they 

 were so hard-set. The eggs are large and white, about the size of 

 a duck's egg. The bird burrows into the sand-hDls about 4 feet 

 and in the shape of a bow, the passage being about a foot 

 below the surface of the ground, and the entrance usually near 

 or under tussocks of grass or low shrubs — the egg, which is 

 solitary, being laid on the bare soil at the end of the hole \\ithout 

 any sign of a nest. 



