674 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIII. 
it is probably not uncommon. There are several records of it during the breed- 
ing season, but there is no indication that it nests in our area. As it is recorded 
in nearly every month of the year it is impossible to say what its migratory 
movements are. 
One skin examined : Amara, 16-3-19 (Logan Home). 
288. Crab, Plover. Dromas ardeola. 
Dramas ardeola, Paykull (K. Sevensk. Vet. Ak. Handl. 26, pp. 182-188, 
1805 — India), 
This, essentially a maritime species, is only known in our district in the Fao 
littoral. Here Gumming obtained specimens in October and eggs from the dis- 
trict. Probably these came from the Khor Abdulla, as Armstrong, while at 
Fao, ascertained that it breeds there in large numbers and had eggs brought to 
him on May 20th from there. From the Arab who obtained them Armstrong 
ascertained the following facts. 
The Khor Abdulla, or Abdulla banks, are situated on the Arabian side of Fao, 
distant about 15 mUes, in an old estuary of the Shat-al-Arab; they are a group of 
rocks with much mud and sand silted up in between them, and round them is a 
huge mud flat at low water ; on the Khor the Crab Plovers nest in colonies, ex- 
cavating bm-rows two to fom- feet long into the sand, at the end of which one or 
two eggs are deposited. The breeding season is well known to the Arabs who do 
quite a trade both in birds and eggs in the country around. The birds are taken 
from the bmrows, put into baskets and taken to Basra for sale ; Armstrong who 
tried eight of them in a pie found they were very good eating ; they had been 
taken from nest burrows and all were females. 
This accoimt agrees very well with that of Huskisson and Nash who visited 
breeding colonies on islands near Bushire {Hume's Nests and Eggs 4, p. 328) 
except that they invariably found a single egg in each burrow and I think we 
may take it that this is the correct number. 
This aberant species lays a pm-e white egg, utterly unlike a wader’s egg, and 
is very large for the size of the bird. 
Comparatively, little is known about the nesting economy of this bhd and should 
any ornithologist be able to visit the Khor in the nesting season and make obser- 
vations there he would be well repaid for the discomfort of the heat. Eggs may be 
looked for early in May and both eggs and young early in June. Spirit specimens 
of both chicks and adults are great desiderata for working out the relationship 
of this anomalous bird. 
289. Turnstone. Areiaria interpres. 
Arenaria interpres (L). (Syst. Nat. 1768, p. 148 — Sweden:) 
Probably not uncommon at Fao as a winter visitor. Finch obtained one 
on February 17th and Cumming shot one there on June 18th so that pro- 
bably some non-breeding birds spend the summer there. 
{To he continued.) 
