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



The number of eggs laid is almost invariably four, five is an 

 abnormal clutch and three only quite exceptional. 



They are very beautiful but do not in the least strike one as 

 being eggs of any of the Snipe tribe. 



The ground colour is generally yellowish, ranging from a pale 

 stone-yellow to a bright yellowish cafe-au-lait, the tint is nearly 

 always bright and the dominant colour is nearly always yellow 

 but the actual tint varies much and there may be a grey, green, 

 olive or even a pink tinge in it. The markings are always very 

 bold in character and generally consist principally of very large 

 blotches with a varying number of specks, spots and lines of deep 

 vandyke brown. The centres of the larger blotches and where 

 they overlap one another are almost black, but the outer edges are 

 sometimes paler and more of a sienna brown. The secondary 

 markings are but few in number and of the same shape as the 

 others, but in colour are a grey brown or sienna brown, more or 

 less washed out in appearance. 



In some eggs the superior markings are paler in colour than 

 usual and now and then one comes across a clutch in which all 

 the markings are a light sienna brown. 



In all eggs normally marked, the markings are most numerous 

 towards the larger end, often forming there an irregular cap, 

 sometimes a broad, irregular zone. 



I have one clutch of eggs in which the markings consist mainly 

 of twisted lines, long and short, with but few blotches or spots. 

 In this the ground colour is the usual yellow, but an even more 

 abnormal clutch has the ground colour a pink, almost purplish 

 stone colour with the usual markings of vandyke brown. This is 

 a very beautiful clutch and I have never seen another at all like it. 



In shape the eggs shew some similarity to Snipe eggs but are, 

 what one might call, of a modified character, the true peg-top egg 

 being quite exceptional and ordinary ovoid or elliptical eggs quite 

 common. Between these two extremes eggs may be found in 

 every shape, the slightly peg-top shape being the most common. 



The texture is hard and close, but not so fine as in the eggs of 

 Gallinago and though there is generally a slight gloss, and some- 

 times a good deal, they are on an average not nearly so glossy as 



