HIMANTOPUS CANDIDUS. 
923 
after remaining in tins position for perhaps five minutes they start off and take wide circles, screaming all 
the while until they return again and hover over their nests. Their note is a harsh hut not unmusical 
monosyllable quickly repeated ; and, as Layard remarks, when a number utter it together the effect is not 
unpleasant. The young birds as soon as they are able to fly about adopt the same tactics as their parents, 
and have just the same note as they fly round the breeding-grounds. The sound may perhaps be best rendered 
bv the words gnrneet, gnrneet, gnrneet, uttered in a brassy tone. I have found the diet of this species to consist 
largely of small shells, particularly a tiny univalve, numbers of which I have detected in a perfect state in the 
stomachs of specimens, mixed with minute crustaceans and very small insects. Yon Heuglin, who notices 
the sedate manner in which the Stilt stalks about, says it catches flies and beetles quite as well as small fish, 
with which he has found the stomachs of some crammed. They are hard-lived birds, and, consideiing their 
comparatively weak frame, are somewhat difficult to kill, unless hit in the neck. I have known one fly a 
considerable distance badly wounded before it fell. Out of the breeding-season they are rather shy ; but 
on the nesting-grounds they will fly round and round the intruder’s head, displaying but little fear in their 
anxiety for the safety of their young. Pallas notices a singular habit which he observed in Central Asia, 
where they were to be seen dancing together, jumping up with expanded wings. 
Niclification . — In the Ilambantota district, where large numbers of these birds breed on the dried-up 
flats of the leways during the salt-gathering season, the nesting-time is in June and July, at the end of 
which former month I have found nestlings. On the occasion I refer to, when the young chicks were pursued 
they took to the water from a little embankment covered with weed, which ran out into the lake, and swam 
like ducklings ; on the ground they ran with extraordinary swiftness, and it was with the greatest difficulty 
that I could catch one, so adroitly did it dart hither and thither as I put out my hand to seize it. The nest 
is usually made in a hole scooped in the ground, or in a little natural hollow about six inches in diameter, 
and the lining depends on the materials nearest at hand. At Hambantota a nest made on the flat foreshore 
of the lake was lined with small pieces of shells. At Minery Lake a nest situated on meadow-laud, about 
50 yards from the water, was entirely constructed of dry lichens, with which the grass was mixed, and which, 
in the wet season, flourished beneath the water. It was rather a deep cup, and contained the usual four 
en-gs. This nest was found on the 10th of July. At Ivanthelai, where there was, in 1874, a large breeding- 
colony of these birds, the nests were all found on an island which was, in the dry season, joined to the main- 
land " Many nests were built in a circle of flood-wreck, with which the highest part was surrounded, and 
were composed of the dry weeds, grass-bents, rubbish, &c. of which the “ wreck” consisted : some were among 
scanty grass on the shingly ground, and had no lining save the gravel of which the soil was composed ; others 
were among the outcropping edges of a stratum of rock, and were made entirely of sticks, mixed with a few 
grass-stalks; some, again, were on the flat land, and made of small twigs gathered from the flood-wreck. 
Long before we reached the place the Stilts came out to meet us, as is their custom, clamouring round our 
heads with loud cries, and continued this flying backwards and forwards until we reached the egg-ground, 
when they mostly all flew off, and settling at the edge of the water began to feed. The eggs in the large 
series I took on this occasion varied much in size, shape, and markings. The usual shape is pyriform, the 
obtuse end being nicely rounded ; but many were flattened at that end, and others the same at the small part. 
The largest egg found measured L96 by 1-29 inch, and was of a dark stone-colour, covered with large 
hieroglyphic-like blotches and streaks and a few light brown irregular lines. In the same nest was a very 
small egg of the same character, measuring only 1-59 by L28 inch, and very flat at the obtuse end. The 
prevalent colour was an ochraccous stone tint, the eggs of this type being marked with irregular-edged blotches 
of blackish sepia, generally more or less confluent at the large end, and mixed with a few underlying marks 
of a paler tint. Others are stone-yellow, openly blotched, the markings being not so jagged at the edges. 
Others are quite green, covered throughout with small blots and markings. Some of the stone-yellow eggs 
were marked with a few large blotches or clouds of blackish sepia. The number varied from three to four in 
each nest, and they were generally found placed with the small ends together. The variation in size was 
from 1-96 to L32 inch in length by from T29 to 1T7 in breadth. 
In India the breeding-habits of the Black- winged Stilt are somewhat different. The season there is 
6 C 
