128 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



a very large uimiber were taken from the bare fields well away 

 from the sides. A very curious fact we noticed here was that we 

 repeatedly came across single eggs dropped casually by the hen bird 

 on the ground with no sign of a nest, and, apparently, with no 

 thought of their incubation. 



The nest itself is a fairly compact pad of grass, straw, rushes or 

 weeds, measuring about six inches across, and from one to three 

 inches in deptli. When placed in a deeper hollow than usual the 

 nest may be almost cup-shaped, but as a rule is merely a flat pad 

 which has a depression less than an inch in depth. It is nearly 

 always placed actually on the ground, but occasionally a few inches 

 off it in a tuft of grass thicker than usual ; even more rarely, it may 

 be found placed on a tangle in a cane-brake just above the water or 

 mud. Nearly always a wet situation is chosen or one just close to 

 mud and water, but this is not invariably so, and, as already narrated, 

 I have taken nests from quite dry fields some distance from any 

 water or wet ground. So also, though most nests are fairly well 

 concealed by cover of some sort, others are placed conspicuously in 

 the open or in stunted grass or stubble, in positions in which it 

 seems impossible they should escape the unwelcome attentions of 

 vermin, winged or otherwise. 



The number of eggs laid is almost invariably four; five and six 

 are abnormal, and three only quite exceptional. 



They are very beautiful, but do not in the least strike one as 

 being eggs of any of the Snipe tribe. 



The ground colour is generally yellowish, ranging from a pale 

 stone-yellow to a bright ye\\owish-cafe-au-lait ; the tint is nearly 

 always bright and the dominant colour is nearly always yellow, but 

 the actual tint varies much, and there may be a grey, green, olive or 

 even a pink tinge in it. Tlie markings are always very bold in 

 character, and generally consist principally of very large blotches, 

 with a varying number of specks, spots and lines, of deep vandyke- 

 brown. The centres of the larger blotches and where they overlap 

 one another are almost black, but the outer edges are sometimes 

 paler and more of a sienna-brown. The secondary markings are but 

 few in number, and of the same shape as the others, but in colour 

 are a grey-brown or sienna-brown, more or less washed-out in 

 appeara.nce. 



