354 SCOlOPACIDiE. 



Mr. Adam has found quite young birds at the Sambhur Lake, 

 and some few paii-s probably breed there ; and Captain Teilden 

 mentions that in June 1867 some twenty pairs bred atajheel near 

 the village of Toomulgoodium, about thirty miles from Secuude- 

 rabad on the Masulipatam Eoad ; but, with these exceptions, not 

 only I, but nearly fifty other oologists scattered over the length 

 and breadth of the Empire, have for years sought in vain for the 

 breeding-haunts of the Stilt. 



The merit of discovering Sultanpoor as a central breeding-haunt 

 is due to Baboo Kalee Narayn, the Customs patrol in charge of 

 the works. He assured me, \\hen I first visited them iu the 

 winter, that the Stilt did breed there in summer, and he correctly 

 pointed out, as the result of his observations, that the eggs, though 

 greatly resembling those of the Eed-wattled Plover, which also 

 breeds there abundantly, can be distinguished from these by — 1st, 

 the nest, the Plover never making any ; 2nd, the size of the egg, 

 which is slightly smaller, and the shape, which is more attenuated 

 at one end ; and 3rd, by the markings, which are less numerous 

 and more clearly defined. 



I specially note this, because neither before nor since have I 

 ever met any Hindoo gentleman who, of his own accord and 

 unprompted by Europeans, had taken heed of such details of natural 

 history. That summer he collected some eggs for me, and next year 

 1 visited the place ; and it may gi\'e some idea of the numbers that 

 resort to these works to breed if I mention that between the 26th 

 April and the 29th May he had actually collected two hundred and 

 thirty-five eggs, and that on ray visit I counted iu two days over 

 one hundred eggs, without going over one-tenth portion of their 

 laying-sites. 



The birds are seen in small numbers throughout the year, but 

 congregate in great numbers towards the middle of April about 

 the works, which consist of brine-wells and many hundred acres 

 of shallow, rectangular, e\aporating-pans from 100 to 200 feet 

 square and from 6 to 10 inches deep. These pans are merely 

 (Jepressions dug in the soil and lined with. cJiunam or fine lime 

 obtained by burning liml-er, a 'nodular concretionary limestone 

 found in beds near the surface more or less throughout the plains 

 of Upper India. Small strips of ground from a foot to five or six 

 feet broad divide the pans, and on the margins of these, or even in 

 the beds of disused pans, where only a little brine ever stands, the 

 Stilts build their nests. 



They collect together small pieces of hunker, or the broken lime- 

 lining of the pans, into a circular platform from seven to even 

 twehe inches in diameter and from two to three inches in height ; 

 on this again they place a little dry grass, on which they usually 

 lay four eggs, but not unfrequently only two or three. They begin 

 to lay, according to season, towards the end of April or the 

 beginning of May; and by the beginning of June numbers of 

 young are to be seen about, and by the 1st July most of the eggs 

 that remain are hard-set. The majority of the birds lay during 

 Jime, earlier or later according to season. 



