THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 35 



'In these cases there is a scant}'' bed of dead leaves which have 



" fallen from the stirroiinding trees and collected in the hollow 



" which generally forms on the upper surface of the stump in 



" a very short time." 



Other naturalists who refer to this habit of building in the stumps 



of old trees are Layard, Parker and Hart, so that it seems to be 



one well known both to the natives of Ceylon as well as to 



European observers. 



The Ceylon Jungle-fowl lays but very few eggs and we may 

 dismiss Layarde's statement that they lay from 6 to 1 2 eggs without 

 further consideration. The normal clutch would seem to be 2, 3 

 being sometimes laid and very rarelj' 4. 

 Legge says : — 



" I have generally found that the eggs do not exceed 2 in 



"number, but sometimes 3, and occasionally 4 are laid." 



And Mr. Wait writes me that his own experience agrees with 



that of Legge and that whilsL he has but one clutch each of 4 and 



3 eggs, he has taken many of 2, the majority of which have shown 



signs of incubation, slight or advanced. 



The eofo-g. when seen in a series at once strike one as differino- 

 from all other Jungle-fowl's eggs, in that the majority are more or 

 less spotted and speckled, whilst some are quite heavily marked in 

 this way. 



I have now seen a considerable number of the eggs of the Ceylon 

 Jungle-fowl ; 9 in the British Museum series, a fine series collect- 

 ed by Mr. Wait, and a few others collected hj Jenkins, Kellow 

 and others and some in the Ceylon Museum. 



In colour they are a pale stone, pale yellow buff or cream, in one 

 or two slightly darker, but in none that I have seen do they ever 

 approach the rich buff tint often seen in the eggs of the other 

 species of Jungle-fowl. A few eggs are practically unmarked, but 

 3 out of 4 differ from those of the Red and Grey Jungle-fowl in 

 being distinctly and profusely spotted with light brown or light 

 purple brown. In some eggs the markings consist entirely of the 

 finest freckles scattered over the whole surface of the egg in such 

 numbers that at a short distance and casuall}^ examined the egg looks 

 almost unicoloured ; in the majority of eggs, however, the tiny 

 specks are accompanied b}- small blotches and larger freckles giving 

 them a distinctly spotted appearance, whilst in others the shell is 

 boldly blotched and marked with light brown, a few of the larger 

 blotches measuring as much as 3 to 4 millimetres in diameter. 



One egg in Mr. Wait's collection has a pinkish stone coloured 

 ground with numerous very fine freckles of dark red brown and a 

 few small but bold spots and blotches of dark brown. 



The eggs in a clutch are not as a rule very evenly coloured, 

 one being generally more spotted than the others, and sometimes 



