76 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVII. 



anything else to determine to what species it may belong, and this matter 

 of texture is one which will be minutely dealt with for each species. 



Mr. J. Davidson is the only collector who has taken a bine cuckoo's 

 effor in India, about which the collector himself feels confident. I have 

 not seen the egg myself, so can pass no opinion on it. He wrote to me: 

 "I also got there (Kashmir) a pale-blue egg from a nest of Hodgson's 

 short-wing (Hodgsonius phoenicuroides), which lays dark-blue eggs. The 

 nest contained one egg. also of phoenicuroides. I am sure that the egg 

 was that of canorus, as I saw a cuckoo flying about in the underwood 

 several times that day and two days previously. There were several 

 more nests of Hodgsonius in the immediate neighbourhood, either building 

 or with one or two eggs, and, if I could have stayed a day or two longer, 

 I have no doubt I should have got more of the same type." We all 

 know Mr. Davidson to be such a close, accurate observer that due weight 

 must be given to his opinion ; but, I am afraid, "non-proven, though 

 probable, " is the most that can be said for it, and, in the light of later 

 discoveries, it looks as if this egg might have been that of mkropterus. 

 Other descriptive notes of blue eggs have been sent me, but. the senders 

 have, generally, on hearing the evidence obtainable, come to the conclu- 

 sion that they were micropterus' eggs, so I leave their notes unquoted. 



The British Museum possesses a magnificent series of cuckoos' eggs, 

 numbering no less than 277 specimens ; yet, out of this huge number 

 there are only four reputed cuckoos' eggs which are blue. These are all 

 continental eggs, except one in the Crowley Collection, and were all 

 taken in the nests of Ruticilla phosnicura, the exception is an egg taken 

 in Dorkino-, Surrey, which was purchased. This last cannot be accepted 

 as authenticated beyond all doubt ; and the history of the three Crowley 

 eo-gs, taken in Finland, I do not know. It is very noticeable, however, 

 that all the eggs, 8 in number, found in nests of the Hedge-sparrow, 

 are of the ordinary type and not blue. 



Another eo-c, calling for remark in the above collection, is one of the 

 many contained in the Seebohm Collection, and is described by Reid 

 (Cat. of Eggs of B.M.) as " blue, sparingly spotted at the broad end 

 with pale-blue, and closely resembling the fosterer's eggs." It was 

 taken in a nest of Saxicola melanolema in Greece. 



The normal cuckoo's egg, as taken in India and exemplified by the 

 specimens passing through my hands, is a stout, blunt oval, seldom at 

 all compressed towards the smaller end ; still they are all oval, and I 



