170 GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



lined with a few straggling blades of grass. The situation varies ; 

 sometimes the nest is in an open waste, sparsely dotted with a few 

 herbaceous shrubs, often in the stubble of the giant and bidrush 

 millets, and still more often in clumps and patches of high thatching 

 grass, or the dense soft lemon-grass so characteristic of the favourite 

 haunts alike of this Bustard and the Houbara. 



"My impression is, that the birds lay only one egg. But some- 

 times two eggs are found pretty close together, and either the females 

 not unfrequently lay very close to each other, or when a female does 

 lay more than one egg, she deposits the second some little distance 

 from the first. Khan Nizam-ud-din Khan has taken more than 

 a hundred of these eggs with his own hand, and he never found two 

 eggs side by side. Where, as not unfrequently happens, two are 

 within a yard or two of each other, he believes that they belong to 

 different birds, and that this is a fact he has in one or two cases 

 proved by snaring both females. I have only myself seen five nests, 

 each containing a single egg. I can, therefore, say nothing positive 

 on this subject. 



" The eggs vary very much in size and shape. They are all more 

 or less oval, but while some are moderately broad and slightly 

 pointed at one end, others are long ovals, exactly similar at both 

 ends, and others again are long and cylindrical, of the same size 

 and shape as the egg of the great Northern Diver figured by Mr. 

 Hewitson ; and I have one specimen that, both in colour, shape and 

 size, might have been the one from which his plate of the egg of the 

 European Bustard was taken. The shells are very thick and strong, 

 closely resembling those of the Sarus in texture, and like those of 

 this latter species, the eggs very commonly exhibit pimples and 

 rugosities at the large end, so much so that, out of sixty eggs now 

 before me, only seven are perfectly free from such imperfections. 

 Some of the eggs are dull and with little gloss, the whole surface 

 lieing closely pitted with small pores similar to, but fewer than, those 

 in the Peafowl's egg, while other specimens are briUiantly glossy. 

 The ground-colour varies much. Typically it is a sort of drab colour, 

 but it is often earthy-brown, dingy olive-green, pale olive-brown, pale 

 reddish-brown, and, although rarely, even pale leaden-blue. The 

 markings vary in extent, number and intensity ; sometimes they are 

 pretty deep reddish-brown and clearly-marked blotches, but more 

 usually they are pale reddish-brown clouds and streaks, sometimes so 

 faint as to be mere mottlings, and sometimes, though rarely, al- 

 together wanting. Occasionally, the markings form an irregular 

 blotchy cap at the large end. 



" Out of sixty eggs in my collection, no two are precisely alike 

 In length they vary from 2'75 to 3'-12 inches and in breadth from 

 2'05 to 2'i5, but the average of sixty eggs is 3'11 x 2'24." 



