NESTING IN WESTERN INDIA. 295 



Some few remain to breed in Rajputana and Guzerat, as I have 

 taken eggs in both these districts in April. 



In Sind it is very common and is a permanent resident breeding 

 in great numbers during April and May, on the sandy islands, in 

 the bed of the River Indus. On one of these islands alone, a small 

 one, about a mile below Kotri, I counted over one hundred nest-holes, 

 and most of them contained three eggs each, some few had four. 



Although there were so many nests, they were a good deal scatter- 

 ed, and required looking for, as they are difficult, especially to an 

 unpractised eye, to see, as they assimilate so perfectly with the 

 sand on which they are placed. 



The eggs are laid in a small depression scratched in the sand ; in 

 shape they are rather broad ovals, fine and smooth in texture, 

 measuring about 1 J 64 inches in length by l - 24 in breadth; the 

 ground-colour varies from pale greenish-grey to a warm buffy-stone, 

 and they are streaked, spotted and lined with various shades of dark 

 brown, with the usual underlying clouds and blotches of faint inky- 

 purple or lilac. 



Mr. Hume, in his Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, 1st edition, says 

 that these two type& are commonly found in the same nest, and infers 

 that they are the produce of one bird, I feel sure that this is a mis- 

 take. I have had opportunities of inspecting hundreds of nests, and 

 although now and then I have found a greenish-grey egg with three 

 buffy ones, or a buffy egg with three greenish- grey, yet ordinarily 

 they are all of the same type and depth of colouring ; and it seems to 

 me quite obvious that the odd egg has been dropped into, the nest- 

 hole by another bird. 



Neemuch, April M. E. Barnes. 



Deesa, I)o. Do. 



Hyderabad (Sind), March and April Do. 



987.— THE BLACK-BELLIED TERN. 



Sterna melanogastra, Tern. 



The Black-bellied Tern seems to be a more or less common per- 

 manent resident throughout the Western Presidency, but I do not 

 think that it occurs in the Konkan. Colonel Butler did not meet 



