294 



The shell is close and compact, but not very fine-grained, show- 

 ing when at all closely looked into a multitude of pores, hut it has 

 nevertheless a slight gloss. 



Typically, the ground is a pale, slightly buffy bro\vn stone-colour, 

 but in some it is paler and more creamy, and in a few it is darker, 

 a cafe au lait with not very much of the milk in it. Typically, 

 again, the markings are numerous and moderate-sized, irregular 

 blotches and spots, which are brown of various degrees of intensity, 

 usually where thinly laid on showing a sort of olivaceous tinge, 

 but occasionally in the darker eggs being more of a coffee-brown. 

 Besides these there are the usual secondary markings, fairly con- 

 spicuous in some eggs, barely noticeable in others, spots, moderate- 

 sized blotches, and tiny clouds of pale inky purple or lilac grey. 

 In some few of the eggs, almost exclusively those with the darker 

 grounds, the primary markings are few and large, and again, equally 

 exclusively amongst those with the paler creamer grounds, these 

 markings- are all very small and more numerous than usual, the 

 secondary markings showing up naturally much more distinctly in 

 these eggs than in the darker ones. As amongst all species of 

 this family amongst a series of some hundreds, one or two quite 

 abnormal almost spotless eggs are met with. 



The eggs vary from 2-10 to 2-45 in length, and from 1-45 to 

 1*72 in breadth. 



Lams gelastes, Licht. The Blender-billed Gull 

 Larus gelastes, Licht., Hwne, Cat. no. 981 quat. 



Colonel Butler writes of the nidification of this species on the 

 Mekran coast: "On the 28th and 29th May, 1878, my friend 

 Mr. Nash, Telegraph Dept., went at my request to a swamp called 

 Moorputty, about 8 miles N.N.W. of Ormarra on the Mekran 

 coast, to look for Flamingos' eggs. The place consists of a creek 

 running out of the sea inland, and terminating in flat marshy 

 ground some 9 or 10 miles in extent, with scarcely a particle of 

 vegetation except a few low bushes dotted about in one or two 

 places. After the rains it looks like an immense river, but towards 

 the hot weather as the water dries up, small mud islands from 50 

 to 100 yards in diameter become visible from day to day as the 

 water goes down, and on these islands he found a few nests of 

 the present species. 



" On one island he found two nests only a few yards apart, each 

 containing three eggs, and on another two or three more nests 

 containing from, one to three eggs each. All of the eggs were quite 

 fresh and three seemed to be the usual number. The nests consisted 

 of a substantial pad of seaweed about 8 inches in diameter, raised 

 a few inches above the ground, and very solidly constructed. 

 There were only a few pairs of birds breeding, and the nests were 

 a good deal scattered." 



