THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 229 



regular, obtuse-ended, cylindrical ellipsoids, the shell very smooth 

 and glossy, the ground colour a delicate pale salmon pink, with a 

 good many somewhat widely scattered specks and tiny streaks of 

 brownish red, ver}^ generally much more niTmerous towards one or 

 other end, and with a good many small pale inky purple spots and 

 clouds almost exclusively confined to that end where the markings 

 are most numerous. 



" Specimens are occasional!}' met with in which the markings 

 are very sparse, and I have one specimen in which they are absolutely 

 and entirely wanting. 



" Not unfrequently the markings form a pretty perfect zone 

 towards one end, and here and there an egg is met with exhibiting 

 six or eight large deep brownish-red blotches. Pale pinky white, 

 and somewhat buffy stone-colour grounds are also met with. 



" Dr. Jerdon remarks : ' I have had the eggs brought me, very 

 cylindrical in form, of a dull earthy green with a few dusky spots; 

 but these most assuredly were eggs of P. exustus and not of our 

 present species fasciatus. ' 



"In length the eggs vary from 1-3 to 1-62, and in breadth from 

 0'93 to 1-05 ; but the average of forty eggs is 1-42 by 0-98." 



These figiu'es in millimetres are, roughly, 33 to 40, 23-5 to 27 and 

 36 by 25 mm. 



In my own collection I have but a poor series of these eggs, but 

 they all agree with Hume's eggs except one pair which have the 

 ground colour a pale dull sea green with a few faded grey and brown 

 blotches and spots sparsely but evenly distributed over the whole 

 surface. These eggs were taken hj a good sportsman who knew 

 both the Painted and the Common Sand-Grouse well and I have no 

 reason to doubt their identification, though I cannot guai'antee it. 

 Jerdon, notoriously, cared little for eggs and was constantly incorrect 

 in this particular, so little reliance can be placed on the identification 

 of his eggs referred to by Hume above. Nor do my eggs agree 

 with Jerdon's, which seem to have been coloured much like those of 

 exustus, whereas the eggs in my collection are very pale and weakly 

 coloured, far more so than any I have seen of that bird. 



The season during which the Painted Sand-Grouse should be 

 protected might be taken as from the 1st April to 1st October, 

 by which latter date i?he great ma-jority of young would be well able 

 to take care of themselves. 



The descriptions of the adult male and female given in this paper 

 were taken from the birds from which the artist painted the plates 

 and they depict average well coloured adult birds, but, as I have 

 already mentioned, there is a considerable range of colouration in 

 this as in most Sand-Grouse, and this must always be born in mind 

 by the sportsman and collector when identifying his birds. 



