REPRODUCTION— COxNCERNING EGGS 203 



coloured, there arc a few whose eggs are spotted and sometimes 

 double-spotted. 



The Grouse, Snow-cocks {Tetrnogallus), and Red-legged 

 Partridges lay spotted eggs : so also do the Quails and Hemi- 

 podes — if these last be true Game-birds. The eggs of the Game- 

 birds are noteworthy as presenting a perfect gradation from whole 

 coloured, through minute freckles of pigment to spots, and from 

 spots to blotches. P'urther, in some species they present a really 

 wonderful range of variation, as, for example, in the Australian 

 Swamp Quail, no two clutches being alike either in size or col- 

 oration. Some are white, others cream coloured, and others 

 again sparingly or thickly freckled and blotched with grey, 

 rufous or brown. Occasionally, as in the case of the Chukar 

 Partridge {Caccabis chukar), the coloration varies with the geo- 

 graphical range. Thus eggs taken in Greece are frequently 

 unspotted ; those from the Grecian Archipelago and Cyprus are 

 generally slightly and sometimes boldly spotted ; more to the 

 eastward they are invariably spotted, and frequently blotched 

 with purplish, reddish or yellowish-brown, grey and pink. 



It is little to the credit of the " field-naturalist " that we 

 have no information as to the nature of the environment of the 

 birds in these different areas. 



The eggs of the Cranes and Rails are always more or less 

 spotted. In the Rails these spots are usually small and of 

 various shades of Indian red on a cream or white ground. 

 Sharpe's Crake {Snurotlinira iiisiilaris) lays a white egg. In 

 the Cranes the coloration is stronger, forming large spots and 

 blotches of various shades of brown and purple on a dark — 

 occasionally light — ground. 



Pew hobbies perhaps have engendered more enthusiasm, 

 have called forth more enterprise, pluck and hardihood, than 

 egg-collecting. Yet, it must be confessed, the gain to science^ 

 for all this expenditure, has been pitifully small. The collector 

 has furnished the raw material for the more serious student it is 

 true, but he has made little enough use thereof himself. To 

 his credit at any rate be it said, that he was the first to point out 

 the striking resemblance between the eggs of the Plover tribe 

 and of the Gulls, birds hitherto believed to be quite unrelated. 

 Since then it has been shown, on anatomical grounds, that this 

 resemblance between the eggs is no mere coincidence, but one 



