THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
of dry kelp in them, little fish and broken crab-shells. The bird when sitting 
keeps close to the large stone which is so much Hke her in tint that it is almost 
impossible to see her until she runs. The nesting is always done in the stony 
ground, not on the sand. In the case of a pair with one egg we could hear 
the young chirping quite plainly, also picking the shell ; when we returned in the 
afternoon, the young was out in the nest but the shell had all disappeared.’ ” 
Mr. Frank Howe found them nesting at Mud Island in Victoria in 
December 1909, the clutch being two. 
“ This species is seldom found far from the sea. They frequent the sands 
and open salt-water flats, and are usually met with in small troops from five to 
ten in number ; the nest (if it may be so called) is hke all others of the genus 
I have met with, merely a shght depression in the sand or pebbles close to high 
water mark ; sometimes eggs are placed among debris containing broken shells 
and coral, etc., above the influence of the tide . . . without any protection 
except that afforded them by their similarity to the surrounding objects 
amongst which they have been deposited ; they are very difficult to be detected. 
They breed from October to December, and sometimes as late as January.”* 
“ This little bird seems to prefer salt water to fresh, and large flocks may 
be noted on the sandy beaches of St. Hilda and Brighton (Victoria). They 
are not easily driven from any of their favourite haunts, and have been 
known to lay their eggs within 100 yards of the St. Hilda jetty. ”f 
“ This species prefers the bays and inlets of the coast and adjacent salt- 
water marshes, although its eggs have been procured in the interior of New 
South Wales.”t 
There is nothing much to note about the nomenclature of this species. 
Described and well figured by Temminck and Laugier, it was referred to by 
Lesson under Geoffrey’s name of C. 7narginatus, but the South African bird 
had been previously described under that name. The only other synonym is 
Mgialitis P canus of Gould, who, when he made his first incursion into 
Austrahan ornithology, described the female. 
* Ramsay, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.) 1877, p. 337. 
f Keartland, Birds Melb. Distr., p. 115, 1900. 
J North, Austr. Mus. Cat., No. 12, p. 306, 1889. 
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