occupied by Birds in Incubation. 89 



of the Common Partridge should have been so persistently 

 stated by authors to be 21 days instead of about 24. 



The Fulicarice and Alectorides do not seem to call for any 

 special remarks. The Limicolce, however^ deserve a few words. 

 According to our present information the period ranges from 

 about 20 days in the case of the Snipes to 29 in the Curlew. 

 It is more protracted among the Plovers and Sandpipers — the 

 Ring Plover and Dunlin^ for example, taking fully 3 weeks — 

 than one would expect if the size of the birds alone be 

 considered ; but we must bear in mind the disproportionately 

 large eggs they lay. Respecting this group_, little or no 

 reliance can be placed on Tiedemann^s Table; and Naumann 

 and others are undoubtedly in error in stating that species such 

 as the Redshank hatch in from 14 to 16 days. Neither do I 

 believe in the duration of incubation (about 18 days) assigned 

 by Saxby to the Golden Plover. In the case he cites, the fact 

 that the egg he broke appeared fresh is no proof that the 

 other three eggs in the nest were fresh. It was most pro- 

 bably an unfertile egg. I was once misled in this very way 

 with regard to the eggs in a Lark's nest. I should mention 

 that many of the Limicolce remain in the egg from 2 to 

 3 days after chipping. 



Size for size, the eggs of the Gavice probably require 

 periods much like those of the Limicolce. Tiedemann greatly 

 understates them, and Yarrell's 17 days for the Black-headed 

 Gull is about a week short of the actual time. 



Our information regarding the Tubinares is too meagre to 

 justify anything but the very general assumption that incu- 

 bation is with them a much protracted process, probably 

 well over 3 weeks in the case of the small Petrels — whose 

 eggs are no bigger than Thrushes' — and extending, according 

 to Mr. W. Dougall, who spent a considerable time in Auck- 

 land Island, to 60 days in the case of one of the Albatrosses, 

 and that not the largest. Thienemann's statement that the 

 Fulmar requires from 56 to 60 days can scarcely be credited. 

 Macgillivray tells us that when his son visited St. Kilda on 

 30th June, 1840, the Fulmars' second eggs were just hatching, 

 the first nests having '^ all been robbed about a month before." 



