STEEHA. 313 



Sheregurh in the Jumna, and though as yet we have found no eggs, 

 it is doubtless for breeding-purposes that they have come up here. 



" Numerous eggs received from Mirzapoor on the Ganges, where 

 it breeds like the other Terns on sandbanks. The eggs, taken on 

 the last day of March, were mostly fresh. Those before me are 

 rather long and pointed. The ground-colour, amount and inten- 

 sity of markings, as well as the shape of the eggs, vary much ; one 

 is a huffy stone-colour, with well-marked dark reddish-brown 

 specks and spots and tiny blotches, and a number of dimly-seen 

 very pale purplish-grey secondary markings ; another egg is a pale 

 cold grey stone-colour, with numerous, feeble, faint purplish 

 blotches and spots dimly seen as if below the surface, and just a 

 few brown specks ; another is very similar to this latter, but with 

 far more of the dark primary markings, which are a purplish 

 brown. 



" Between April 4th and 8th I secured a number of these eggs 

 on sandbanks of the Jumna and Chumbul, specially near Bhurrey, 

 all or nearly all fresh. They are therefore decidedly later 

 breeders than the other Terns. These eggs vary much in ground- 

 colour ; in some this is pale olive-brown, in some pale reddish 

 brown or cafe-au-lait colour ; in some it is very pale green, in 

 others almost pinkish. The general character of the markings are 

 spots, small blotches, and a few specks of a rich dark brown (which 

 in some is blacker, in some more purple, and in some redder), with 

 blotches and spots of a sort of subsurface-looking faint purple or 

 lilac. None of the eggs seem to have any gloss, whereas there is 

 often a good deal and always some in the case of those of S. seena 

 and Rhynchops albicollis, and occasionally a little where those of 

 S. melanogastra are concerned. In some the markings are thickly, 

 in some sparsely, sown over the whole surface. In some they form 

 a sort of zone near the larger end, while elsewhere there are few. 

 In some too, in fact generally, the spots and blotches are roundish, 

 but at times they are long streaks similar to those so common on 

 Skimmer's eggs. They are proportionally more oval eggs as a 

 rule (I mean longer and less broad) than those of S. seena and S. 

 melanogastra. 



"I found three nearly fresh eggs of this species on a bank in 

 the Chenab, near Wuzeerabad, on the 28th April. This species 

 appears everywhere in India to lay later than the other species, in 

 company with which it breeds. This is perhaps the rarest of our 

 common river Terns, and its eggs are far less easy to procure than 

 those of the others." 



In the case of this and other Terns I have quoted descriptions 

 written with the fresh eggs before me, besides giving a full de- 

 scription taken from those in my collection — 1st, because the eggs 

 do vary so that no one description written at one time can quite 

 adequately embrace all varieties ; and 2nd, because these eggs, 

 more perhaps than any others, change colour with keeping, even 

 though all light be rigidly excluded. 



