WHITE-HEADED STILT. 
“ Composed principally of a dried alga, with other aquatic plants, placed on clumps 
of the dwarf salt marsh plant, being built up about 9 inches above the water. They 
measured approximately 8 inches across. Dead twigs of Salicornia were placed 
on the top of the nests.” (French.) 
JEggs. Clutch, four ; ground-colour greenish stone, marked all over with irregular- 
shaped spots of dark purplish-black and smaller underlying ones of lavender; 
axis 44.5 to 45 mm., diameter 30.5 to 31.5. 
Breeding-season. September (Queensland, Ramsay), October (Victoria, French), April, 
May, August (Campbell). 
Captain S. A. White reports from South Australia that : “ The white-headed 
Stilts were not nearly so plentiful this year [1912] as I have seen them in 
former years. One large flock was met with in the Albert Passage which 
connects the two lakes; many were immature birds which could be distin- 
guished by their brownish appearance and thick harsh cry. When feeding 
and sinking knee-deep in the soft mud we observed these birds often up to 
their bodies in a soft place, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they 
extracted their long legs and had to use their wings in doing so. Their gait 
when walking in the mud is very ungainly, for they lift their feet so high. 
The eyes of these birds are extremely large and prominent and they would 
see well at night.” 
Mr. J. W. MeUor writes : “ These birds are regular visitors to the swamps 
at the Reed-beds just west of Adelaide, South Australia, coming in the spring 
while the flood waters from the River Torrens are still over the low-lying 
land, and keeping in little flocks of six or eight, and leaving us about breeding- 
season, but a few stay on right through the spring, and breed, leaving us when 
the water has quite dried up, taking their young with them. Last season I 
came across a nest right out in the open, in December: the land had been 
under water several feet, but the sun had dried this up, and the pair of birds 
took up their quarters on a slightly rising piece of ground. It was some 
time before their nest was discovered, as the male bird would give the signal 
of your approach while you were yet a long distance off, and the female 
would at once run away, and soon rise into the air with her mate, and make 
frantic attacks upon the intruder long before he came near the nest, flying 
round and round, and then darting down and flying past one’s head, uttering 
a plaintive cry of distress. After some days of searching the nest was found 
by my brother, and contained four beautifully and heavily-blotched eggs, 
placed in the usual way as other waders, the small ends all meeting one another, 
and so preventing them from roffing away, each one helping to keep the other 
in a central position, and as the nest is a mere bare shallow hollow on the earth, 
this is necessary ; there were a few httle bits of straw and stick placed 
round, but this had apparently been picked up and put there as the bird sat 
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