Some Punjab River Birds. 
39 
first met with the si^ecies ut Phillaur about the iniddle of 
March, when iiiunbers used to arrive every evening from the 
river at a lai'ge jheel, where they skimmed about close to the 
surfact: of tlie water in a very swallow -like manner until 
dark. At Jhelum the same propensity to flighting in the 
evening, waw noticeable, foi' until after dark gi-eat numbers 
used to pass up the river, Hying sonretimes low and settling 
on th(i sand -banks, and sometimes travelling about a gun- 
shot above the ground; on one occasion I saw^ several very 
large flocks, flying at a great height in the air. Wiiile Hying, 
a peculiar rather peevish " chui-ring " note is uttered. 
Ai; intei'esting characteristic of the bird is its skill 
in feigning to be wounded or crippled; one has only to enter 
the boundaries of a large nesting colony to obtain an ex- 
perience to be remembered. Clouds of birds rise and Ily 
all around the intruder, or skim over the surrounding water, 
uttering an incessant "churr," while on every side within 
a distance of a few yards numbers of birds flap and struggle 
on the ground, in every posture of wounded agony, but a 
few steps taken in its direction is enough to cure the most 
desperately wounded bii'd, which joins its comrades in the 
air, doubtless rejoicing at the success with which the intruder 
has been lured from its nest. But the stratagem, while bene- 
fittmg the individual can be of little use to the colony in 
general, foi- nests are so thick that to decoy an intruder from 
one danger zone is only to lure him to another. 
The clutch usually consists of two eggs, and three are 
not uncommon, but of about a hundred nests which I iiave 
examined, only one contained four eggs. The nest is a hollow 
scooped in the sand by the birds, on occasion neatly and 
carefully fashioned, about half being absolutely in the open 
and the rest against a sprig of tamarisk or other sand-growing 
plant. On one occasion I found a nest well sheltered be- 
tween two stones. 
The usual site of a colony is on fine loose dry sand, 
but places where such sand is overlaid by a broken crust 
of dry mud deposit are also favoured: the colony in which 
the accoraiianying photo w^as taken is the only one that I 
have found placed among stones. 
A very lai-ge percentage of nests are washed away 
