252 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



hollow, often under the shelter of a plant or bush, lined with a 

 few scraps of vegetable refuse. The eggs are four in number, 

 and vary from pale olive-green to pale buff in ground colour, 

 boldly blotched, spotted, and clouded with olive-brown and dark 

 reddish brown, and with underlying markings of violet-gray. 

 They are rather pyriform, and measure on an average i"6 inch 

 in length by i"i inch in breadth. Both parents assist in the 

 duty of incubation, and only one brood is reared in the year. 

 As soon as the chicks are hatched, the broods and their parents 

 repair to the shore, and very soon afterwards the migration south 

 begins. In the high north the entire breeding season only lasts 

 about a couple of months. 



Diagnostic Characters. — Strepsilas, with the chin and 

 throat white. The mottled black, white, and chestnut plumage 

 of this species is very characteristic. Length, 9^ inches. 



