8 Messrs. J. A. Buckiiill avd G. H. GrlMivold on 



identification of Capt. Shelley that they are those o£ //. mar'i- 

 (jnensis. Mr. Duncan writes : — " The efjo-s sent were collected 

 ])y me at Pienaar's Hiver and were all taken from one tree 

 which held about two hundred nests. The nests were 

 identical with those of //. velatus, with the exception of their 

 })ein^- — to my mind — rather smaller. The male bird enclosed 

 was shot hanoing on a nest, and seemed to me to be a small 

 specimen of //. velatus^ but, on exhibitino- it at a meeting of 

 the Johannesburg Field Naturalists' Club, it was considered 

 by the members to be //. cabanisi." It need only be added 

 that the eggs of this bird (/. e. the form of H. velatus found 

 in the Transvaal amongst other places, and separated by 

 Shelley as //. mariquenitis) have been often described before. 



[J. A. B.] 



The nine clutches of eggs of H. marijuen.vs offer a striking 

 instance of the variation of the eggs of a single species. 



The normal number of eggs in a clutch seems to be three. 

 They divide into four grou{)s : — 



1st. Pure white. 

 2nd. Pure bluish-green. 

 3rd. With the ground-colour bluish-green, with red-brown 



and lavender-grey spots. 

 4th. With the ground-colour creamy or whitish-buff, 



with dark, light brown, reddish-brown, and lavender 



spots. 



In the 1st section the three white eggs have a very slight 

 shade of cream-colour and are slightly glossed. 



In the 2nd the three bluish-green eggs are also slightly 

 glossed and do not vary much in tint ; they resemble in colour 

 light specimens of the British Hedge Sparrow (Accentor 

 ^nodularis) . 



In the 3rd the three clutches of three eg-gs have the 

 ground-colour bluish-green, much the same as in No. 2 : the 

 clutches do not vary very much in colour or markings ; in 

 some the dark brown spots and blotches are spread over the 

 entire shell, in others less scattered, while in one examjile 



