The black-bellied finch-lark is very plentiful. It breeds about here from March till August. The first nest which I found was on 22nd April 1870. As I was riding along the lake edge, I saw a female with a feather in its bill, so I followed it up to its nest. The nest was nearly finished, but contained no eggs. On the 26th there were two eggs, and I think this is the normal number, but I have a record of there being found in one nest. The nest was built well out into the lake bed, on the top of a low retaining wall of a salt pan. It was a deepish cup shape, in diameter about three inches, with the egg cavity rather less than two inches across and half an inch deep. It was chiefly composed of coarse pieces of grass worked carelessly together, and here and there were pieces of cloth and twine of the same material as the salt bags are made of. Round the nest was a belt about five inches broad composed of small pieces of an incrustation of saline earth about a tenth of an inch in thickness. The pieces varied much in size, but the largest were about an inch long by half an inch thick.

This nest was comparatively safe, but it is a puzzle to me how others which I have seen on the lake edge escape being squashed by the thousands of bullocks and camels which are continually passing and re-passing.