EUPODOTIS EDWARDSI 171 



Hume's eggs, now iu the British Museum, show a most beautiful 

 range of colouration, far in excess of what one would expect from the 

 above description, and many may have been taken after it was written. 



The most normal colour is an olive-brown, in some eggs more 

 brown, in others more olive, whilst in some there is a distinct 

 yellowish tinge, and in a good many a grey or greyish-stone tint. 

 The markings consist of indistinct blotches and freckles of dull- 

 brown, livid-brown, or reddish-brown with, more rarely, others of 

 neutral tint or grey. As a rule, both types of marking are longi- 

 tudinal in character and very sparse, in some eggs being almost 

 entirely absent or so faint as to be indiscernible without close 

 inspection. 



The abnormal-coloured eggs are generally pale blue-grey or very 

 pale blue-green in ground-colour, and are probably the result of 

 imperfect colouring in the oviduct due to exhaustion of some of the 

 colour-ducts or to illness of the bird laying them. They are exactly 

 similar to the last-laid eggs of gulls and terns, whose eggs have 

 previously been repeatedly taken or destroyed. Four or live of 

 Hume's eggs of this bustard are practically uni-coloured pale-yellow, 

 or grey-stone, and there are two light yellow-brown eggs which are 

 quite handsomely blotched with reddish-brown and underlying marks 

 of neutral tint. 



One or two eggs are marked with specks and spots rather than 

 blotches, and one of the blue eggs has a few well-developed blotches 

 of dark rich brown. 



The shape of the egg is very regular, almost an ellipse, with one 

 end a little smaller than the other ; here and there one sees an egg 

 which is a very broad oval, and even less often a long narrow oval. 



The surface is very line and smooth, and there is a decided gloss 

 in the majority of eggs, though a few have none at all. 



The longest egg in the Hume collection measures 86'3 X 

 53'2 mm., whilst the shortest is 68'0 X 55'5 mm. The broadest 

 measures 80'5 X 61'3 mm., and the most narrow 8'2'5 X 53'5 mm. 

 The average of eighty-three eggs is 79'4 X 57"6 mm. 



I have in my collection a very fine series of eggs of this species 

 taken by Mr. Harrington Bulkley, and the times at which these eggs 

 were found extend considerably the period given, as above, by Hume. 



