634 Mr. J. D. D. La Touche— Field-Notes on 



is thus occupied, the male usually sings perched on the top 

 branches of a small tree in the immediate neighbourhood. 



The materials composing nests taken at Chinkiang are the 

 same as in those from Fohkien. The number of eggs in a 

 clutch is usually four or five, but sometimes only three. 

 I described in 'The Ibis' for 1900 (p. 36), eggs of 

 E. cioides from four taken at Kuatun in N.W. Fohkien. 

 The large series taken by me at Chinkiang enables me 

 now to describe them better. Normally the ground-colour 

 is greyish white. The markings consist of hair-lines and 

 scrawls of very dark brown, short or long, twisted if short, 

 or wound if long, in an ever-varying pattern round the larger 

 end of the egg, over similar underlying lines of violet-grey. 

 In many cases there are roundish or drop-shaped spots, 

 which, as a rule, terminate or begin the lines. The markings 

 almost always form a cap or ring, but exceptionally this is 

 not apparent, the surface-markings consisting of spots or 

 angular lines scrawled irregularly over the egg, the apical part 

 of which is, however, almost always free from spots or lines. 

 The ground-colour of these abnormal eggs is suffused with 

 pinkish. Rarely, some clutches have but few marks : one 

 of this kind in my collection shews a few hair-lines and the 

 ground is marbled with underlying grey, while two of the eggs 

 have, besides, a couple of yellowish blotches. These yellow 

 marks appear also in a clutch given by llickett with the rest 

 of his collections to the British Museum. The shape of the 

 eggs is normally broadly ovate, exceptionally oval. There is 

 great variation in the size. Forty-six eggs range in length 

 from 0-68" to 0-82" and in breadth from 0-55" to 0-64". 

 The average of forty-one of these is 0*77 x 0"61". A very 

 small clutch taken by me, and not included in this estimate, 

 averages 0'694 x - 56", the largest of these being 071 X 

 0-56" and the smallest 0'68 x 0-56"., 



The female of Emberiza cioides appears to have at Chin- 

 kiang two styles of plumage. The most common is that 

 given in descriptions of the species ; but I have two females, 

 shot on February 27 and April 28, which resemble the adult 

 male in every respect except as regards the vertex, which is 



