SPUR-WING PLOVER 
73 
nesting, nor, I think, do the whole of our autumn birds 
stay in this district. A nest I found near Mount 
Moriac in the first week in July contained three 
hard-set eggs ; they were lying in a slight depression 
on the top of a low mound in wet crab-holey country. 
A small island near the edge of a swamp is another 
favourite nesting-site. The young, like those of 
all Waders, can run as soon as they are hatched, and 
hide very dexterously. 
The use of the yellow spur on the shoulder (which, 
it should be remarked, is possessed not alone by our 
bird, but in greater or less measure by various related 
Plovers all over the world), and the true significance 
of the curious yellow wattles, or lobes, which depend 
from the sides of the face, have not yet been satis- 
factorily determined. 
The sportsman is no friend of this Plover, for it 
has the unique faculty of giving with its hard cries 
a timely warning of the gunner's approach, however 
stealthy, to the Ducks or other game upon which 
he is advancing. I have heard old Duck-shooters 
solemnly aver the existence of a compact between 
the Plover and the Black Duck — a one-sided one, 
surely, for though he is not bad eating, there are few 
who will shoot a Spur-wing Plover unless out of sheer 
exasperation ; indeed, the bird is well-nigh as sacrosanct 
in the eye of country youth, all legislative protection 
apart, as is the Magpie or the Laughing Jackass. That 
is, I think, the chief reason why the Spur-wing Plover 
U not materially diminishing in numbers in our district. 
