LOBIPLrTIA. 345 



The eggs are not, I think, separable from those of the Indian 

 representative race either as regards size or markings. 



Lobipluvia malabarica (Bodd.). The Yellow-wattled 

 Lapwing. 



Sarciophorus bilobus (Om.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 649. 

 Lobipluvia malabarica {Bodd.), Hume, Rough Draft N. ^ E. no. 

 856. 



The Yellow- wattled Lapwing breeds throughout the plains of 

 India in dry uplands. I have usually found the eggs in waste 

 plains, known in Upper India as ' Oosur maidans,' rarely in 

 ploughed lands, never on sandbanks or in the close vicinity of 

 rivers or tanks. The bird is in India at all times a bird of the 

 dry uplands, like the Stone-Plover, and has none of the affection 

 for damp or wet localities that so strongly characterizes most of 

 our Plovers. 



According to my experience it lays in April and May. All the 

 nests I have found were met with in these months. Mr. Brooks 

 found a nest in Chunar in May and in Etawah in April. Sir E. 

 Buck got a nest in April in Cawnpore, Mr. If. Ii. Blewitt in 

 Eaipoor in May, and I have not yet heard of anyone getting a 

 nest at any other time of the year, but stUl I think it very possible 

 that our bird may lay earlier and later. 



On one or two occasions I have found the eggs overshadowed 

 and more or less hidden by tufts of grass, but U8ua,lly the nest is 

 out in the open without any attempt at concealment. 



The nest is a small circular depression scooped out by the bird 

 and entirely unlined, some 3 or 4 inches in diameter and an inch 

 in depth, and often with a Uttle earth or a number of tiny pieces 

 of kunker scraped up against the margin all round, so as to deepen 

 the cup. 



The eggs are always four in number. 



Colonel G. E. L. Marshall writes : — " All the eggs that I have 

 taken of this species were found in ploughed fields. I have not 

 found many, for the bird is rare and the eggs very hard to see. 

 On the 26th of April, near Cawnpore, I found four eggs laid on a 

 ridge in a small ploughed field surrounded by ' usar,' I had the 

 greatest difficulty in finding them, walking three times carefully 

 over the field, and twice marking down the female bird from a 

 short distance as she seated herself on them. She accompanied me 

 throughout the search, and returned to the eggs before my eyes 

 when I retired baffled, though they were quite fresh. The male 

 bird was feeding a couple of hundred yards away." 



The late Major Cock wrote to me : — " This is a very common 

 bird in certain parts of Oudh near Seetapore, and more of its eggs 

 could I think be taken there than of Lobivanellus indicus. It 

 breeds in July ; and on any piece of rough ground, if you observe 

 the bird walking about, the eggs may be quickly found by moving 



