254 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vii. 



IV., pi. VIII., fig. 12). Mr. P. F. Bunyard has four sets 

 from Surrey and Sussex, pure white spotted with pale red, 

 and one of his specimens is figured by Dresser {Eggs of 

 Birds Eur., pi. iii., fig. 4). The Cambridge Museum also 

 contams a clutch of four (Bucks.) and a single egg (Norfolk) 

 white with reddish-brown spots [Ootheca WoUeyana, I., 

 p. 288). 



Blackbird {T. m. merula). — It is not very uncommon 

 to find eggs in which the ground is almost entirely hidden 

 by reddish-brown markings. Others have the red con- 

 centrated at the large end (see Frohawk, Brit. Birds, pi. i., 

 fig. 17, and Cat. Eggs Brit. Mus., IV., pi. viii., fig. 7). 

 A much rarer variety has a creamy-white ground with 

 spots and streaks of light chesnut. A clutch of four from 

 CO. Waterford (1890) of this description is in the British 

 Museum {Cat. Eggs, IV., pi. vni., fig. 1), and R. J. Ussher 

 {Birds of Ireland, p. 7) mentions other clutches taken in 

 Waterford in 1885 and 1890, some of which are in the 

 collections of Mr. R. W. Chase and Owen's College (Dresser, 

 Eggs of Birds of Europe, pi. ii., fig. 8). The Bidwell 

 collection also contained two eggs with pink spots on a 

 white ground, and erythristic specimens also exist in the 

 Dresser (Spain) and Johnson collections, and that of Mr. 

 F. Coburn. Mr. Chase has also similar sets from Lincoln- 

 shire and Cambridge. 



[Nightingale {Luscinia m. megarhyncha). — -A scarce 

 variety is clouded with reddish-brown on an abnormally 

 pale ground. A clutch (Northants) exhibited by Mr. 

 Bunyard to the British Ornithologists' Club is of this 

 description (see Bull. B.O.C., Nov. 1913).] 



[Nightjar {Caprimulgus e. europceus). — ^No erythristic 

 eggs have been recorded of the European Nightjar, but 

 Mr. Bunyard's collection contains a pair which are distinctly 

 flushed with a pale roseate tinge. Many of the tropical 

 species of this genus normally lay pinkish-brown or apricot 

 coloured eggs.]* 



Cuckoo {Cuculus c. canorus). — The extraordinary range 

 of variation in the eggs of this species is common know- 

 ledge, and there is quite an extensive literature on the 

 subject. On the whole, the variation in British-taken 



* The Fantail Warbler (Cisticola c. cisticola) furnishes a good 

 example of erythristic variation, one type of their variable eggs 

 being white with red markings. The blue types, which are not 

 uncominon in southern Europe, are wanting in the eggs of the 

 eastern race {Cisticola c. cursitans). 



