914 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



As a rule, the nest is placed in some wide-stretching fen on a 

 small tussock or patch of ground slightly higher than the sur- 

 rounding fen-land, and several pairs of birds may be found breed- 

 ing on the same swamp. Sometimes, however, the Jack Snipe 

 lays its eggs at a considerable distance from any actual swamp, 

 and they have been found in hay-fields or in strips of grassland 

 which contain soft and muddy patches. 



The full complement of eggs laid is always four, as with other 

 snipes, and the eggs themselves are typical snipes' eggs in shape, 

 colouration and texture, but are extraordinarily large in proportion 

 to the size of the bird. A hen Jack Snipe after laying her last 

 egg, seldom weighs more than 2 oz., yet the weight of the four 

 eggs is, roughly speaking, about an ounce-and-a-half. 



As regards the few eggs in my collection, I can see no difference 

 in colouration between the eggs of Gallinago coelestis and those 

 of Gallinago gallinula, but it has often been claimed for the latter 

 that they are more richly coloured on an average, and this may 

 be the case when a large series is taken into consideration. 

 The ground colour is generally a yellowish stone colour, often 

 tinged with green or grey, or, less often, with reddish and the 

 markings consist of broad blotches and spots of deep brown, many 

 almost black, with others underlying them of dark purplish grey. 

 Occasionally these secondary markings are paler and more 

 washed-out in character and are then rather a lavender than 

 purple-grey. The markings, both primary and secondary, are 

 generally more numerous at the larger end, being sometimes 

 almost entirely confined to this. In one pair in my collection, 

 which comes from Finland, the blotches form a broad ring about 

 the larger third of the eggs, the markings on the smaller two- 

 thirds and inside the ring being but few in number and very 

 small. 



The texture is smooth and close, and usually there is a decided 

 gloss ; the shape is the ordinary pyriform or peg-top. 



Oates gives the measurement of the Jack Snipes' eggs as 

 varying between 1*4" and 1'65" in length and between 1*05" 

 and 1*13" in breadth. Dresser gives the average as 1-55" by 

 l"-05", and those in my collection average 1-52" by 1-09". 



