GALLINAGO GALLINAGO RADDEI 79 



ductive of some half-dozen specimens one could really call typical. 

 In some of these the axillaries were entirely pure white and the 

 barring of the lower wing-coverts absent except on the terminal 

 thirds of the greater coverts and the shoulder of the wing. 



Nidification. — I have a clutch of four eggs of this snipe in my 

 collection, given me by Mr. H. E. Dresser, who secured them from 

 Dr. Buturlin. As might be expected, they are not distinguishable 

 from those of the Common Snipe, though they are duller-coloured 

 than most eggs of that bird. 



The ground colour is dull olive, stone-colour, in one egg rather 

 more brown than in the other three, and the markings consist of 

 large and small blotches and spots of different shades of Vandyke 

 brown, all dark and many almost black. Underlying there are 

 others of purple grey and washed-out brown. At the larger end, 

 where the blotches are very numerous, they run into and overlap 

 one another ; elsewhere they are smaller and sparsely scattered. In 

 one egg there is a long twisted line of dark brown, about 1^ inches 

 in length and very narrow ; this forms a circle at the extremity of 

 the larger end. 



They are of the usual pyriform shape, and do not differ in texture 

 from the eggs of Gallinago gallinago. 



They measure I'SG X 111 inches, 1-.5G X I'lS, ISS X I'lS, 

 and 1'56 X 1'09. They were taken at Pokkodski, Kolyma, on the 

 22nd June, 1905. 



