44 CAPRIMULGIDJE. 



of eggs, said long ago of this species : " Makes no nest ; eggs laid 

 on the bare ground in bush-jungle ; in general two ; shape blunt, 

 and both ends nearly equal; male egg 1-^ by-j-| inch, pale fleshy 

 clay-colour, sprinkled with patches of darker brownish red ; female 

 egg l T 3 g- by J inch, paler and redder." 



" Of this species," remarks Captain Hutton, " which is a summer 

 visitant at Mussoorie, I took two eggs, at an elevation of 5000 

 feet, on the 19th April, from the bare ground, beneath bushes on 

 the side of a hill, the colour being a rich cream-white, with darker 

 blotches of reddish brown or clay colour ; of one the diameter was 

 1| by J inch, the other was somewhat smaller;'' and Captain 

 Beavan tells us that "in Maunhhoom, where it is more frequently 

 heard at night than seen, I have procured the eggs at the end of 

 March or the beginning of April ; they are as described by Captain 

 Hutton." 



The eggs of this species are, as a rule, much paler than those of 

 any other Indian species with which I am acquainted. 



Some specimens that I possess of this bird's eggs I owe to 

 Captain Hutton, who vouches for their authenticity. They are 

 long, slightly cylindrical ovals, apparently somewhat smaller than 

 those of 0. europcrus. The ground-colour is a pale creamy or 

 yellowish-stone colour, and they are streaked or blotched with very 

 pale yellowish and purplish brown. Many of Captain Button's 

 eggs have, he informs me, faded since they were collected, so that 

 the above description may scarcely represent the colour of the 

 fresh egg. Other specimens received from Captain Hutton and 

 elsewhere, said to belong to this species, resemble in shape and size 

 those already described, but the ground-colour is almost a china- 

 white, and the markings, which resemble those of the eggs first 

 described in character and shape, are mostly a pale lilac, inter- 

 mingled with some brown, and altogether, though paler eggs, 

 remind one very much of the European Goatsucker's egg. 



These eggs, if, as I have no reason to doubt, they really belong 

 to C. allinotatus, differ in toto from all the other Indian Goat- 

 suckers' eggs that I have seen in their almost purely white ground, 

 with only the faintest possible lilac tinge ; they also average con- 

 siderably larger than those of the foregoing species. 



But the eggs are not always of this pale type. I have seen a 

 pair taken by Captain Cock at Dhurumsala which are a beautiful 

 delicate salmon-pink, marbled cloudily over with pale purplish 

 brown, part of the markings appearing as if below the surface of 

 the eggs. 



Colonel G. F. L. Marshall tells me that he " found a nest of C. 

 albinotahis at Bheem Tal, at an elevation of about 4000 feet above 

 the sea. There were a good many of the birds about, keeping in 

 some small tree-jungle on the north side of a small hill. I only 

 found one egg (shooting the parent bird from off it, after watching 

 for about half an hour), and it was laid on the bare ground in a 

 little cleared spot among dead leaves at the root of a shrub and at 

 the foot of a low bank, which, between them, completely shaded it. 



