NESTING IN WESTERN INDIA. 301 



1878. They were found on mud banks on the island of Tungistan, 

 about 40 miles east of Bushire, in the Persian Gulf, and the nests, 

 which contained from two to four eggs (considerably incubated) each, 

 were simply round depressions in the ground, scratched by the birds 

 themselves. The eggs vary much in ground-colour and markings, 

 some of them reminding one of the eggs of Sterna saundersi. I have 

 no doubt about these eggs, as a skin of Sterna ancestheta was forwarded 

 with them, and a note saying that there were no other Terns laying 

 in the island at the time they were taken." 



He adds a couple of notes : — " A quantity of eggs taken on an 

 island 16 miles south of Bushire on the 18th July, 1878. The nest 

 consisted of a slight depression in the sand, just above high-water 

 mark. Seldom more than one egg in a nest, sometimes two, but 

 never more.' 



J tJO 



"Lays but one single egg, very similar to the egg of Sterna 

 albigena, but rather larger. They burrow about one to one-and-a-half 

 feet under shrubs or tufts of grass. Sometimes they lay on the 

 ground under shrubs without burrowing, but never in an exposed 

 situation. The eggs are always carefully concealed, and consequently 

 difficult to find. The eggs I found were all in a patch of grass and 

 shrubs about 80 yards long, growing thickly together. No nest." 



Mr. Hume thus describes the eggs : — 



J oo 



" In shape the eggs seem to be normally very much that of a hen's 

 egg, though somewhat more pointed and elongated examples occur. 

 The ground-colour appears to vary from nearly pure white to a rich 

 pinky-stone colour. The primary markings, often small, never 

 apparently very large, and never very thickly set, are a rich reddish 

 or burnt-sienna-brown, becoming black in some spots ; besides these, 

 chiefly towards the larger end of the egg, a certain number of pale 

 purplish-grey specks and spots are observable, occasionally they are 

 pretty densely set about the large end, but in many eggs they are 

 very sparse and small. The shell, as usual in these Terns, is very 

 fine and close, but entirely devoid of gloss. 



The eggs vary from 1*61 to 1*88 inches in length, from T16 to 

 1-29 inches in breadth." Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, 2nd Edn. t 

 Vol III., p. 300. 

 39 



