356 



place from which it has been disturbed, uttering its well-known cry in true Lapwing fashion, it 

 manages to keep at a respectable distance from the intruder. When on the wing or when 

 approached while on the ground, particularly at night, it is constantly uttering its harsh and 

 rather amusing notes; these consist of a shrill cry, followed by others resembling the words 

 ' Pity to do it,' ' Did you do it? ' — which are particularly annoying to the inexperienced sportsman, 

 as they are always vociferously given out after having been fired at and missed ! At night it is 

 a most watchful bird, and ever ready in the jungle to alarm slumbering nature around it with 

 utterance of these cries. When watching for deer, on a moonlight night, behind an ambush, 

 or, as it is called in North Ceylon, a ' shade,' of newly-cut boughs, and employed in the somewhat 

 monotonous sport (?) of intently gazing through a small opening in my lair at a water-hole some 

 fifteen yards in front of me, I have had these troublesome birds run close up, and, finding me 

 out, rise with loud cries of ' Pity to do it ; ' and whether it was a pity or not to do it, I used to 

 find that after this alarm the deer gave the water-hole a wide berth, and did not come to 

 drink." 



The Red-wattled Lapwing breeds throughout India, both on the plains and in the hill 

 country, up to about 4000 feet above the sea-level. According to Mr. A. O. Hume, the 

 breeding-season extends from March to August, but the largest number of the eggs in his 

 collection were deposited in April, and the normal number of eggs appears to be four. He 

 gives (Nests and Eggs of Ind. B. 2nd ed. iii. pp. 340-344) several detailed accounts of its nidifica- 

 tion, from which I gather that it breeds on river-banks, the edges of swamps and ponds, and in 

 well-irrigated gardens, except during the rainy season, when they select drier situations. The 

 eggs are often placed amongst the ballast on a railway, on the top of an old hedge-bank, in an 

 old brick-kiln, and on several occasions they have been found on the top of a flat-roofed house. 

 The nest is usually a slight depression in the ground, which is often surrounded by a little circle 

 of stones or a little ridge of sand, and in one instance, where the nest was on the roof of a house, 

 the birds had collected all the little pieces of loose mortar on the roof and made a raised-up nest. 

 This bird appears to have a partiality for a railway-line as a site for its nest, for Mr. Hume 

 writes (I.e.) as follows: — "Going along the line at Etawah for about three miles, on the 

 14th August, we found five nests, one containing perfectly fresh eggs. Four of these nests were 

 on the kunker ballast within two feet of the rail, so that the footboard of the carriages of every 

 train must have passed over and within two feet of the sitting bird. The fifth was on the top 

 of the boundary bank, the bird sitting totally unconcerned as our trolly passed within six or 

 eight feet of it, and only moving when I walked up to the spot. Brooks tells me that along 

 his fifty miles of line he has seen at least one hundred nests within the last twenty days or 

 month." 



The late Mr. Charles Home gives (Ibis, 1869, p. 454) the following interesting account of 

 the nesting of this species on the roof of a house : — " The judge's court-house at Manipuri is a 

 large building with a terrace-roof of plaster beaten fiat. Beneath it are also the courts of 

 several other officers ; and it is frequented by from four to five hundred people daily. A broad 

 ladder leads to the top of the building, which is surrounded by trees and adjoins a large swampy 

 barren piece of land such as the Lapwing loves. While sitting in court I have often heard 

 Lapwings making a great outcry ; but I never guessed the cause, until, on inquiry, I found that, 



