EED-KNEED DOTTEREL. 
with white. The secondaries are also black and tipped boldly with white, and also 
white at the base, the amount varying in each feather. The lesser and median 
wing-coverts are mostly white, with a few brown feathers just coming, and a 
small patch of white on the spurious wing. Humeral feathers dark brown, tipped 
with a lighter shade. The tail feathers are black, tipped with lighter brown ; 
under tail-coverts white, with a few brownish-black spots. Beak yellowish for about 
half its length, the end being black. The nasal groove is more than half the length 
of the beak. Feet yellowish and toes black.”* 
Nest. None is made ; the eggs are placed in a slight depression in the ground, on the 
edge of a large inland lagoon (Ramsay). 
Eggs. “ Clutch four ; ground colour varies from hght to dark stone, thickly covered all 
over with irregular angular and curved hair hues, and irregular shaped markings 
of black, which cross and re-cross each other in various directions, the lines vary in 
thickness from that of a fine hair to that of coarse thread, on the thicker end here 
and there they loop and form tangles ; axis 29-31 mm., diameter 23 ” (Ramsay). 
Breeding-season. October, November, and December (Ramsay). 
Mr. Charles Belcher tells me this bird has been shot near Werribee, on the 
shores of Port Philhp Bay, Victoria, but it is a very rare occasional visitor 
to the south of Victoria. 
“ They visit the Mudgee district usually in April and May, young birds 
of the year being amongst the number. On arrival they are usually in poor 
condition, but after a week or two on the flooded ploughed lands they become 
balls of fat.” (Cox and Hamilton.) 
Adult and nestlings were procured in the country round Lake Eyre by 
Lyons in December, 1901. 
“ This smart-looking Dottrel is fairly common from December to May 
in this district [Richmond, Queensland], always at the waters edge and 
generally in couples. I have seen as many as five at a dam, but you could 
not say they were together.”]* 
The same author says : “ An occasional visitor that never seems to settle 
down and make itself at home. You are likely to come across it during any 
month of the twelve, but it certainly favours the period November to April, 
though curiously enough, the most I ever saw together — ten at one com- 
paratively small waterhole — ^weis in August. Usually they are seen singly 
or in pairs, rarely four or five together.”]: 
Gould, § who saw it on the Hunter, Mokai, and Namoi Rivers in October, 
November, and December, says : “ I seldom saw more than two together, 
and these were almost always male and female ; they appear to prefer soft 
muddy banks to the stony or shingly margins of the rivers. It is a most shovy 
and active Httle bird, and is so tame that I had not the slightest trouble in 
shooting as many as I pleased. Its actions and manners are very peculiar, 
and partake both of those of the Dottrell and the Sandpiper ; having the 
* Le Sou6f, Emu, Vol. I., p. 136, 1902 (Kalamurina, South Australia), f Bemey, ib., Vol. II., p. 212, 1903. 
J Bemey, ib., Vol. VI., p. Ill, 1907. § Handb. Birds Austr.,Yo\. II., p.240, 1866. 
36 
