on the Lesser Rock-Sparrow.



295



Eventually, on May 9th, my supposed pair of birds both

got simultaneously egg-bound, and the supposed cock died.

After its death I squeezed out the egg, which (although broken)

was in all respects identical with those previously laid. I sent

the bird to a taxidermist to be skinned, and asked him to get it

correctly identified for me : this was done at the Natural History

Museum, the bird being pronounced a slightly aberrant example

of Petronia dentata, the forehead to the middle of the crown, the

throat, and centre of abdomen being snow-white in my specimen.


The general colouring of P. dentata is ruddy mouse-

brown, the median and greater wing-coverts with slightly paler

edges ; the flights and tail-feathers much darker but with pale

edges; wings below with the coverts and inner edges of the

flights whitish: the crown of the head is usually dark grey, but

in my bird, the back part is dark brown (a little more smoky

than the back) and with a large irregular snow-white frontal

patch. There is a broad reddish clay-brown eyebrow streak.

Usually the chin, upper half of throat, breast, and under tail-

coverts, are white, shading into pale brown on the sides of head

and throat. I11 my specimen the white splashes over, upon the

front of the face, and is strictly limited to the centre of the

throat, where it is continuous with the usual pale sulphur patch

in front of the breast; the whole abdomen also is white, only

stained at the sides with brown. Iris reddish-brown ; beak dark

horn-brown, flesh-coloured towards base of lower mandible; feet

dusky flesh-coloured.


The eggs, of which I was only able to save two, are re¬

markably uniform in character for eggs of a Sparrow, but are

unmistakably of the Sparrow type, not white: they are more like

a very aberrant egg of the House Sparrow (fig. 141 of Brit. Birds

with their Nests and Eggs) in my collection, than any others

that I have seen, but, in some respects, remind one of some

eggs of the Greater Whitethroat, with which they also corres¬

pond much better in size.


The ground of the egg is greenish-white, more or less

thickly dotted with dark brown ; the larger extremity is always

sooty blackish, exactly as if it had been held in the smoke of a



