OALEKITA. 



235 



lowish white, uniformly freckled with greyish yellow and neutral. 

 Nest a little grass in a hole in the ground." 



Colonel Butler has sent me the following note from Sind : — 

 " At Kurrachee, 22nd April, 1877, I found a nest containing one 

 fresh egg. The nest was on the ground in the centre of a small 

 scrubby salt-plant, common all o\er the sandy maidans about 

 Kurrachee. It was composed of coarse dry grass, roots, &c,, 

 and lined with lumps of raw cotton, bits of rag, thread, &c., the 

 exterior being encircled with a slight embankment of lumps of hard 

 incrustated earth which had peeled from the surface of tlie ground 

 that had been inundated. 



" In the same neighbourhood I found nests later on, on the 

 following dates : — 



" April 29. 2 uests, each containing 1 fresh egg. 

 " April 29. 1 nest containing 2 fresh eggs. ' 

 " April 30. 1 „ 3 chicks fully fledged. 



" April 30. 1 „ 1 fresh egg. 



" May 1.1 „ 2 fresh eggs. 



"May 1. 1 „ 3 half-grown young birds, 



"May 5. 1 „ 3 eggs (1 fresh and 2 incubated). 



" The eggs vary so much in shape and markings that I have 

 scarcely two alike. The ground-colour seems generally, however, 

 to be a pale greenish white. ISome eggs are boldly blotched, 

 spotted, and speckled with dark olive -brown, with a few inky- 

 purple secondary markings. Others are speckled all over with 

 greenish olive and inky purple. Others are boldly spotted and 

 speckled, principally at the large end, with olive-green, without 

 any secondary markings, and in some instances there is a decided 

 tendency to a zone. In some eggs the markings are clear and 

 well defined, in others they are faint and indistinct. In shape 

 and size they also vary greatly. It is a wonder to me how any of 

 the eggs of this species are ever hatched, as out of many dozens of 

 nests of both species which I left this year with single eggs in 

 them to take later on, I found invariably on returning a day or 

 two after that the uests were empty. What it is that takes the 

 eggs I do not know (possibly foxes, as I saw their ' pugs '), but 

 whatever animal it is it must be an uncommonly clever nest-seeker 

 as hardly an egg seems to escape notice." 



The eggs are broad ovals, typically a good deal pointed towards 

 the small end, and they have a little but not much gloss. Our 

 Indian eggs, I must remark, are very much smaller than those of 

 European birds to judge from Mr. Hewitson's figure. I have 

 taken a good many eggs of this species, and they averaged little, 

 if anything, bigger than Mr. Hewitson's figure of the egg of 

 O. brachydactyla. They have a strong family resemblance to the 

 various Lark eggs already described, but they are of course larger 

 than most of them. The markings, too, as a whole are larger and 

 more conspicuous. The ground-colour as usual is a greenish or 

 yellowish white, and the markings, specks, spots, and blotches are 

 yellowish or greenish brown and pale purple, all three colours of 



