508 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
to rear a family in the neighbourhood of a homestead. It is pleasing 
to be able to place on record that the dottrel seems disposed to accept 
the situation of settlement rather than submit to banishment or 
extermination. I have seen the eggs as early as August 2nd, the 
season lasts almost through December, according to locality. It lays 
three eggs, ovoid, oval, or pyriform, they vary sometimes in size, but 
an average specimen measures in length one inch four lines, with a 
breadth of an inch. The surface is dull, not at all shiny, the ground 
colour varies considerably; they may be seen of a dull white, greyish 
white, pale sea-green, greenish white, greenish grey, greyish brown, 
pale brown, dull olive-brown varying in depth of tone, with very dark 
blackish-brown or black pencillings over the surface generally, but 
these are more numerous around or towards the larger end. A set, 
from a cultivated field at Westerfield, of rich but dull olive-brown, has 
small marks which generally are rounded in outline; another set, © 
from the same locality, of similar ground colour, has dull black marks 
apparently blurred or somewhat faded into the surface of the shell. 
Aug. 2, 1856, nest with two eggs, Rakaia river. 
Dec. 15, 1884, nest with three eggs, Ashburton river, above the 
gorge. 
September may be considered the height of the breeding season in 
this, district. 
63. Charadrius ruficapillus, Temm. 
Red-capped Dottrel—This wader is now included in the list of 
New Zealand birds. The egg pale stone-colour, sprinkled all over 
with irregular blotches of brownish-black. Length one inch three 
lines, breadth eleven lines (Campbell). Specimens in the writer’s 
collection from Australia, are somewhat pyriform, stone colour, with 
brownish-black or black marks freely distributed over the surface; in 
another example the marks are mostly round-edged, some of which 
appear sunk into the surface; not shiny. 
Genus——Thinornis. 
64. Thinornis Nove-zealandie, Gml. 
Masked Plover, Sand Plover, Shore Plover, Tuturautu.—This 
pretty plover is sometimes frequently seen in the southern part of 
this island fossicking about the sandy shores at the mouths of rivers.* 
It is very hardy, with a strong inclination for the neighbourhood of 
the sea. As a nest-builder its talent is about on a par with that 
displayed by some other species of Charadrie. It is content with 
collecting a few leaves of grass which are bent and twisted into 
circular form just about large enough to contain the eggs, which are — 
protected by this thin flimsy structute as it keeps them together. 1 
have the eggs from the southern part of this island, as well as a series 
from the Chatham group; one of the nesting-places in the last-named 
habitat offers such interesting features, that it is worth being 
recorded and described. To the north-by-west of the main Chatham 
island lies a small group of rockly islets known as “The Sisters” or 
Rangitutahi. One of these wave-beat islets rising to some 150 feet 
above the sea, having an area of about five acres only, affords a 
nesting-place to the Shore plover; this very exposed and unsheltered 
site apparently is shared only by the huge albatross and the giant 
