302 LAEIB^. 



occasionally slightly pointed ; but many elongated and stumpy 

 eggs are also met with. Every intermediate gradation is found 

 between a warm umber or sepia ground and a ^ery pale grey stone- 

 colour, in the latter case with a faint permanent greenish tinge. 

 The eggs are spotted and boldly blotched and clouded with dark 

 umber-brown or warm sepia, in some instances so dark as to be 

 almost black, the deep tone often overlying a lighter one. All 

 have inferior clouds and spots of light brownish purple or faint 

 inky grey. G-enerally the markings exhibit a tendency to gyrate, 

 but many exceptions occur. In a considerable number of cases 

 they are chiefly clustered in a zone round the obtuse end, in these 

 eggs being sometimes confluent, particularly in the browner speci- 

 mens, and a few eggs have also scattered broken patches of the 

 same colour as the other upper markings. Some have no blotches, 



and spots are spread almost equally over their whole surface 



The dimensions of twenty eggs are, mean 1-58 X 1'12 ; maximum 

 length 1-74, breadth 1-20 ; minimum length 1-48, breadth 1-05." 



Sterna melanauchen, Temm. The Blaclc-napecl Tern. 



Onychoprion melanauchen (Temm.), Jerd. B. Ind. n, p. 844. 

 Stern ula melanauchen {Temm.), Hume, Rough Draft N. 8j- E. 

 no. 991. 



The Black-naped Tern breeds within our limits only, so far 

 as is yet known, on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. 



For a magnificent series of its eggs, and for such information as 

 I possess in regard to its nidification, 1 am indebted to Captain 

 Wimberley. 



It lays, according to the monsoon, earlier in some years, later in 

 others, between the middle of May and the first week in August. 

 Little rocky islets, a little detached from the main island and but 

 for a httle scrub entirely bare, seem to be usually chosen for 

 nesting-places, if indeed this term may be used for a bird that lays 

 its eggs either upon a little collection of small lumps of coral and 

 stone on the bare rock, or in a little depression in the sand. 



Two seems to be the full complement of eggs. The eggs vary 

 very much in shape. Some are very perfect broad ovals, scarcely 

 perceptibly pointed at one end, and others are decidedly elongated 

 ovals, almost Plo\er-like in the wax they are pinched out towards 

 the small end ; but the majority are intermediate between these 

 two forms. The shells, though smooth and satiny in then* textui'e, 

 exhibit but little gloss. The ground-colour varies from creamy 

 yellow or very pale buff to pinkish or greenish stone-colour, and is 

 more or less sparingly, but usually boldly, blotched and spotted 

 with a more or less sienna-brown, which in some spots is almost 

 black. Besides these primary markings, as in aU Terns' eggs, 

 numerous clouds, spots, and blotches, in some eggs small, in some 

 large and conspicuous, of pale purple or dusky lilac are scattered 

 here and there about the egg, looking in some cases as if thevwere 

 below its sui'face. In some spots the brown is excessively red, and 



