274 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ing the bird, and she fought the approach of the hand in the same 

 manner as would a sitting hen, ruffling her feathers, opening her 

 beak, and striking viciously. The incubation period of the heath 

 hen, according to Doctor Field, is 24 days. 



Eggs. — In addition to the eggs mentioned above in connection with 

 the account of the nests, there are the following: An egg in the 

 Brewer collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology marked 

 Tympanuchus cupido, Holmes Hole, Mass. (Holmes Hole is the old 

 name for Vineyard Haven). There is an egg in the John E. Thayer 

 Museum and another in the collection of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History. The latter was picked up on the plains of Marthas 

 Vineyard after the destructive fire of 1916. Bendire (1892) de- 

 scribes the eggs as " creamy-buff in color with a slight greenish tint, 

 ovate in form and unspotted." They are regularly oval in form, 

 all specimens being quite uniform in this respect. The color is yel- 

 lowish green of a peculiar shade. I have compared the colors of 

 this set of eggs with Kidgway (1912) and find all of them to be a 

 " deep olive buff." One egg has a small spot of drab. All other 

 heath-hen eggs that I have examined are of this same deep olive- 

 buff color. 



The measurement of the five eggs in the Brewster collection are as 

 follows, 43.5 by 32.5, 43.5 by 32.1, 43.8 by 32.5, 43.9 by 32.4, and 

 46.2 by 32.9 millimeters, and the sixth egg, now in the United States 

 National Museum, measures, according to Bendire, 44 by 33 millime- 

 ters. The egg in the Brewer collection collected at Holmes Hole 

 measures 44.2 by 32.6, and the egg at the Boston Society of Natural 

 History collected at Marthas Vineyard in 1916 measures only 40.3 

 by 30.4, the smallest egg of the species I have examined. 



Young. — The first young of the heath hen for the season usually 

 made their appearance during June. The earliest record is of a 

 brood of 8 or 10 young seen near Edgartown on June 14, 1913, by 

 Dr. Charles W. Townsend. During the season of 1913, nine broods, 

 with an average of four chicks to the brood, were seen. On July 

 15, 1914, a dead chick was found that was estimated to be about five 

 days old. In 1915, 14 broods were reported. The first brood, seen 

 on June 19, consisted of six chicks about five days old. Allan Ken- 

 iston saw seven broods with an average of five chicks each during the 

 summer of 1918, and in 1919 he reported broods on June 29, July 1, 

 and July 11, the members of which were able to fly well at that time. 

 For 1920 the following were noted: June 20, 10 young; June 24, 

 6 young; July 4, 2 small broods, the numbers were not recorded; 

 July 9, 5 or 6 young. During the summer of 1921 a brood of seven 

 was seen on July 3, and a few days later a brood of eight was re- 

 corded. On July 31 a brood of six, about two-thirds grown, was 



