384 BALLIDJi. 



The ground-colour varies from a clear, almost sap-green, through 

 various shades of olive-green, drab and stone colours, to a darkish 

 olive-brown. I have seen no specimens exhibiting the blue and 

 bluish grounds occasionally met with in the eggs of the Gre.at 

 Indian Bustard. 



The markings are brown, reddish or olive-brown, occasionally 

 with a purplish tinge, in some very faint and feeble, obsolete, or 

 nearly so, a mere mottling ; in others conspicuous and strongly 

 marked ; but in the majority neither very faint nor very conspi- 

 cuous. In character they are generally cloudy streaks, more or less 

 confluent at the broader end (from which they run down parallel 

 to the major axis), and more or less obsolete towards the smaller 

 end. Occasionally, however, they are pretty uniformly scattered 

 over the whole surface of the egg. 



In size the eggs vary from 1*77 to 2'06 in length, and from 1'5 

 to 1*7 in breadth ; but the average of twenty -three eggs is 1*88 

 nearly, by rather more than 1'59. 



Family RALLID^E. 



Porphyrio poliocephalus (Lath.). The Purple Coot. 



Porphyrio poliocephalus (Lath.}, Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 713. 

 Porphyrio neglectus, Schleg., Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 902. 



The Purple Coot breeds all over the plains of India wherever 

 there are large swamps and jheels with plenty of rush and weed. 

 As a rule, not less than ten pairs breed in the same place. I have 

 invariably in Northern India found the eggs in July and August, 

 never earlier or later ; but they are said to have been met with in 

 June and September. 



Two noteworthy points are (1st) that all the birds in the same 

 swamp both lay and hatch off about the same time ; (2nd) that 

 in two different jheels only a dozen miles apart and apparently 

 precisely similarly situated, there will be a difference of fifteen 

 days or more in the period of the laying of the two colonies. Thus 

 I have noted that one year, on the 10th August, I found every one 

 of over a dozen nests in the Atchuldy jheel empty and the young 

 hatched off ; while on the 16th of the same month at Eahun, dis- 

 tant some twenty miles only, I found seventeen nests full of eggs 

 mostly a good deal incubated it is true, but none ready to hatch 

 off for at least a week. 



The nest is made of pieces of rush and reed in amongst thick 

 grass and rice. Sometimes it is on the ground, sometimes, though 

 not free, it is floating. In the latter case the bottom of the cavity 

 will not be above an inch or two above the surface of the water, 

 but there will be a mass of stuff submerged. Ten is the maximum 



