320 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



little low scrub, entirely bare. The eggs are regular ovals, rather 

 more pointed towards one end than the other, and though 

 smooth and satiny in their texture exhibit but little gloss. 

 The ground color varies from creamy yellow to pinkish stone 

 color, and is sparingly, but usually boldly, blotched and spotted 

 with a more or less sienna brown, which in some spots is almost 

 black. Besides these primary markings, as in all terns eggs, 

 numerous clouds, spots and blotches, in some eggs small, in some 

 large and conspicuous, of pale purple or dusky grey, are scat- 

 tered here and there about the egg, looking as if they were 

 below its surface. In some spots the brown is excessively red, 

 and in others a reddish halo surrounds part of the spot as if 

 the color had run. The eggs vary from 1'49 to 1'63 in length, 

 and from l - 08 to 1*16 in breadth. 



992.— Onychoprion anostlxeotus, Scop. (0.) 



Of this species Mr. Blyth received a specimen from the 

 Andamans as noticed in Mouat^s Appendix. We did not our- 

 selves observe the bird there, but it unquestionably occurs in all 

 the islands and indeed throughout the Bay of Bengal during 

 the monsoons. 



In the young of these birds the bill is almost black, and 

 the feet are a dark dingy brown with a very faint reddish 

 orange tint. The whole upper plumage, (except the forehead 

 and edge of the wing which are white,) is hair brown, very pale 

 at the back of the neck and dark on the primaries (the outer web 

 of the first being almost black), and mo^t of the feathers, 

 except the primaries, are more or less narrowly tipped with 

 fulvous white. The measurements of a young one obtained 

 in the Bay of Bengal where they are not uncommon in 

 the autumn, were as follows : — 



Length, 12; wing, 9'7; bill, at front, 1*42 ; from gape, L 92 ; 

 height, at front, 0*23 ; tail, 5*5 ; • the longest tail feather exceeds 

 the shortest by 2 - 2; tarsus, 08 ; mid toe and claw, 1*15; the 

 mid toe claw is less curved than in fuliginosa, but has the 

 inner edge similarly dilated. 



993.— Anous stolidus, Lin. (0.) 



Blyth notices the receipt of a specimen from the Andamans. 

 We did not obtain it there. 



Whether the common noddy of the Bay of Bengal is really 

 identical with the stolidus of Linnaeus, is perhaps still some- 



