EMBERIZA. 169 



when taken three fresh eggs, but when first found (on the 14th) 

 there was only one. The nest was on the ground, wedged in 

 under a large boulder." 



Captain Beavan recorded : " A nest was brought to me at 

 Fagoodak bungalow on 4th August, 1866, containing two eggs, 

 which have much of the colour of those of Fringilla ccelebs, with 

 markings as in E. citnnella that is, they are of a pale pinkish- 

 blue-green, with blotches and streaks of claret -colour. They 

 measure '81 by *62. The nest is fairly made of grass, lined with 

 hair, and was, I believe, found in a low thick bush." 



At Murree Colonel C. H. T. Marshall tells us that he " found 

 several nests in the middle of June in low bushes or banks." 



Major Wardlaw Ramsay says, writing of Afghanistan : " I 

 found it breeding on the 19th June at the foot of the Peiwar 

 Kotul, at about 8000 feet." 



Colonel John Biddulph tells us that this species is " extremely 

 common all the winter " at Gilgit, " but goes higher about the 

 beginning of April, and breeds at about 8000 feet. I took two 

 nests (second brood, no doubt) in the first week of August. Both 

 were on the ground, under a stone. One had only one egg in it, 

 the other three. 



" I also took a nest with three fresh eggs in it on 1st June, at 

 9000 feet, and took two nests, each with three eggs quite fresh, on 

 23rd and 24th June." 



The eggs of this species are typically moderately elongated ovals, 

 perfect and regular in their shape ; they have little or no gloss, and 

 the ground is a very pale greenish white or grey or brownish 

 stone-colour. Their markings consist of the most delicate and 

 intricate tracery of fine dark brown (in some places almost black) 

 lines drawn over faint and pale inky-purple streaks or marbling. 

 Here and there a black or dark-brown spot, like a fly caught in a 

 spider's web, is seen amidst the tangle of lines that so specially 

 characterize the eggs of this species and others of the Bunting 

 family. These lines, I may remark, are commonly mostly confined 

 to the large end of the egg, where they form in some a tangled 

 cap and in others a broad, irregular, but conspicuous zone. I do 

 not think that Dr. Bree's figure of the Meadow-Bunting's egg 

 conveys at all a good idea of the eggs of the Indian E. stracheyi ; 

 the lines are much too few in number, and too coarse and thick. 

 Hewitson's figure of the Tellow-ammer's egg much more closely 

 resembles our eggs ; but even in this the lines are neither suffi- 

 ciently numerous nor fine. Anything more elaborate or intricate 

 than the labyrinth-like pattern of hair-lines exhibited by some of 

 the eggs before me can scarcely be conceived. These very fine 

 lines, and the manner in which they are disposed about the larger 

 halt' of the egg, remind one forcibly of the very similar lines met 

 with in the eggs of the little Prinia inornata. In size the eggs 

 most closely approach those of the Cirl Bunting, and out of a 

 very large series only one is as large as that figured by Dr. Bree. 

 The eggs of our bird vary in length from 0-72 to 0-92, and in 



