STEEPSILAS INTERPEES. 905 



sometimes sparingly lined with a few grass-bents or roots mingled with, perhaps, one or two dead leaves. The 

 eggs are four in number, and thoroughly Scolopacine in shape and markings, having nothing whatever in common 

 with Sea-Plover's eggs. They are pyriform, and for the most part compressed near the small end ; the colour 

 is clayey buff, olivaceous stone, or brownish stone, and the markings, which are in all thickly gathered round 

 the large end, are longitudinal, oblique-running, smeary blotches of umber-brown and olive-brown of one or two 

 shades (in some eggs darker than in others) over clouds, smears, and spots of bluish grey ; the smaller half of 

 the egg is boldly marked, but the blots are more circular and are intermingled with small specks. An egg in a 

 fine series of Mr. Seebohnr's, before me, is closely spotted or freckled throughout with several shades of brown, 

 and in another the markings are brownish red. In size they vary from P52 to 1*7 inch in length by from 

 1'06 to 1*15 in width. The late celebrated oologist Mr. Hewitson, together with Mr. J. Hancock, were the 

 first naturalists to bring the eggs of the Turnstone to England in the autumn of 1833. 



Genus XUMENIUS. 



Bill very long, slender, rounded, and curved as a sickle throughout; tip obtuse, projecting 

 over the under mandible ; mandibles grooved, the upper for three quarters of its length, the lower 

 for half; nostrils linear and near the commissure. Wings long, the tertials exceeding the 

 primaries ; 1st quill the longest. Tail moderate, cuneate. Legs stout, moderately long. Tarsus 

 covered with narrow transverse scutes below, and polygonal ones above ; toes webbed at the base 

 and margined by a narrow membrane : hind toe moderate ; claws dilated. 



The exterior notches on the sternum are wide and deep, and the interior narrow and pointed, 

 the dividing "process" branching outwards. 



