EGGS OF CHARADRIID^. 441 



Eggs — Clutch, 4 ; pyriform in shape, but broad for the length ; 

 soft in appearance and lustreless ; ground color, olive-stone, or 

 light olive, fairl)' marked Avith r^'undish blotches and spots of 

 dark brown or sepia, interspersed with the usual quotient of 

 dull greyish markings. Dimensions of a clutch in centimetres — 

 (1) 4-28 X 3-09 ; (2) 4-27 x 3-14 ; (3) 4-22 x 3-12 ; (4) 4-2 x 3-1. 



The marked differences between the banded and white-headed 

 stilts' eggs are that the former are iisually more heavily blotched, 

 while the latter joossess a more greenish groimd-color. 



Observations. — The eggs above described are from New 

 Zealand (I am aware that Mr. Seebohm treats the white-headed 

 stilts from that quarter as a sub-species, while Gould and Sir 

 Walter Buller regard it as identical with the Australian bird), 

 and were taken by Mr. J. C. McLean on the 2nd November, 

 1890, at Repcngaere, Poverty Bay, from a nest ]daced on a 

 small islet or mound of earth, 2ft. or 3ft. square, rising from a 

 sheet of shallow water. There were two other nests ^n adjoining 

 islets — one containing four incubated eggs, and the other one 

 egg (uncompleted clutch). Ten or a dozen bii'ds were about 

 the locality. 



With reference to the pied or white-headed stilt. Sir Walter 

 Buller states : — " I have found it nesting both on the dry sands or 

 shingle beds at the mouth of our tidal rivers, and in grass 

 meadows, on our cultivated lands, near the sea shore I h^ive also 

 met it breeding in small companies, but each well apart, on the 



dry river be Js many miles from the sea It usually 



commences to breed in October, but I have found newly-hatched 

 young as late as the first week of January.'' 



In Dr. Hamsay's interesting remarks of this species we read 

 that " in 1865 large flocks arrived in company with the straw- 

 necked and white ibises, and took up their abode in the lagoons 

 and swamps in the neighborhood of Grafton, on the Clarence 

 River, where, on my visit to that district in September, 1866, all 

 three species were still enjoying themselves. A few days pre- 

 vious to my arrival in Grafton a black in the employ of Mr. J. 

 Macgillivray, and a very intelligent collector, discovered a nest of 

 this species containing four eggs, which have been secured for our 

 collection. The nest was a slight structure, consisting merely of a 

 few short pieces of rushes and grass, placed in and around a 

 depression at the foot of a clump of rushes growing near the 

 water's edge of a lagoon." However, the dimensions (1 o^oin.-l roin. 

 X IJin.-liiii.) of the eggs furnished by Dr. Ramsay would appear 

 abnormally small compared with the size of the bird, and are 

 much smaller thrm those given by other authorities. 



The j'oung in down is of various shades of fidvous yellow, 

 varied on the upper part with brown, and with a series of square 

 black dots down the back, and a broad streak of the same color on 

 each thigh (Buller). 



