SANDWICH TEEN. 25 



They then may be approached, as they cannot be at other 

 times. They are late in breeding, seldom commencing till 

 the month of June. 



The eggs are usually two, but sometimes three or even 

 four in number. Meyer says, 'The bird sits on them during 

 the whole night, but only occasionally during the day, and 

 as in the preceding species, some few birds remain about 

 the breeding-places, to keep watch during the absence of the 

 rest. It has been asserted that these birds, although laying 

 two or three eggs only for a brood, will, when the eggs 

 are taken out of the nest daily, continue laying for a fort- 

 night.' The eggs vary exceedingly, and are extremely 

 beautiful. They are of a pale yellowish stone-colour, thickly 

 spotted and marked with deep reddish brown, orange brown, 

 blackish brown, and grey. Some are of a whitish, and others 

 of a dull green ground colour, with spots of a darker shade. 



Male; length, one foot five or six inches; bill, black, the 

 tip yellowish white, farther extended in winter; iris, dark 

 brown. Head, crown, neck on the back, and nape, black, 

 with generally a little intermixture of white, and in winter 

 the forehead and crown are white, or mottled with white 

 and black, the back of the head with the most black, the 

 edges of the feathers white. The feathers at the back of 

 the head elongated into a slight plume ending i n a point, 

 this is followed by white, running into the bluish grey of 

 the back; head on the sides below the eyes, white. Chin, 

 throat, and breast, white, with a tinge of rose-red underneath, 

 that is to say in summer, not in winter; back, pale bluish 



g re .T- 



The wings have the first quill feather the longest; they 

 expand to the width of two feet nine inches, and reach 

 beyond the end of the tail; greater and lesser wing coverts, 



Sale bluish grey. Of the primaries, the longest is slate grey, 

 arker on the outer web, and more than half of the inner 

 near the shaft from the point, the shaft white; the two or 

 three next paler, and the succeeding ones still more so, till 

 they shade away into the colour of the wing coverts; the 

 inner webs paler than the outer; tertiaries, grey, the ends 

 nearly white; greater and lesser under wing coverts, white. 

 Tail, forked and white, the outside feathers dashed with grey 

 on the outer webs; upper tail coverts, white; under tail 

 Coverts, also white. Legs and toes, dusky black, with a 

 tinge of red, underneath the latter are yellowish; claws, 



