336 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



too good a sportsman not to know a Honbara when he sees one. 

 Mr. Doig had excellent reasons for believing that the Houbara 

 bred in the desert between Godra and E-enahoe." Barnes then 

 refers to Col. Butler's remarks in Str. Feathers, which are as 

 follows : " Mr. Scroggie, however, who resides at Henjam, im- 

 parted an important piece of information which I must not omit, 

 and that is that one or two pairs of Houhara onacqueeni were 

 breeding in the Island and that abont six weeks before our arrival, 

 i.e., about the first week in April, a pair ( (5' & $ ) were shot there, 

 and that he extracted a perfect egg from the oviduct of the female 

 and put it under a hen to hatch, but that siibsequently it was 

 destroyed by rats. I am inclined to think that the greater number 

 of Houbara that visit Sind in the cold weather breed in Persia and 

 Afghanistan. ' ' 



The nest, which is merely a depression in the sand or earth, 

 seems generally to be placed in the open though under shelter of 

 some scrubby bush or patch of grass, failing these, in amongst 

 stones or boulders. 



The eggs seem to be three in number in a full clutch though 

 sometimes two only may be laid. Gates thus describes the egg of 

 this species in the British Museum: " The eggs of the Indian 

 Houbara are elliptical in form and possess verj^ little gloss. The 

 groimd colour varies from stone colour to dull olive-brown, and the 

 markings are more distinct than is usually the case with eggs of 

 the Bustards. They consist of spots and blotches of rather dark 

 brown and pale underlying purple, very evenly distributed over 

 the whole shell. Specimens measure from 2-3 to 2-55 in length, 

 and from 1'65 to 1*85 in breadth." 



Eggs in my own collection answer the above description well, 

 but I have one clutch of three from the Altai which has the 

 ground colour a very distinct olive-green, indeed, they are the 

 greenest eggs I have' in my collection of any Bustard. The mark- 

 ings are rather indefinite as a rule and even the darkest are often 

 somewhat smudgy in character. 



The eggs in the British Museum are dated 25th April, Euphra- 

 tes Valley, and 15th May and June from Altai Mountains. Eggs 

 in my own collection from the latter place are dated 12th June 



