334 (EDICNEMID^. 



to make the egg at a little distance appear a nearly uniform, dirty, 

 pale brown. This extraordinary deficiency of colour was not, as 

 is commonly the case, accompanied by any dwarfing." 

 Of another very remarkable egg I have noted : — 

 " The markings were very large and bold, two gigantic blotches 

 on the broad half, like Asia and Europe, and North America, with 

 a number of contiguous islands. Colour your land black, your 

 seas stone-colour, and a terrestrial globe distorted into the shape 

 of an egg wiU conrey an admirable idea of the markings of this 

 queer specimen." 



In length the eggs vary from 1-65 to 2-15, and in breadth from 

 1-3 to 1 "5 ; but out of forty-seven eggs thirty-nine measure less 

 than 2 inches in length, and the average of the whole number is 

 1-9 nearly by 1-39. 



Esacus magnirostris (Greoff. St.-Hil.). The Australian 



Stone-Plover. 



Esacus recuTvirostris {Geoff.), Hume, Hough Draft N. Sf E. no. 858 

 bis. 



The Australian Stone-Plover occurs within our limits, so far as 

 is yet known, onlv in the Andamans and Cocos, where I last year 

 discovered it. We shot single specimens at both the Great and 

 Little Cocos ; at the latter we obtained an egg. We saw the bird, 

 but failed to obtain a specimen at Escape Bay in Macpherson's 

 Straits ; subsequently I have received a specimen from Port 

 ComwaUis. The egg we obtained at the Cocos was taken on the 

 24th March ; it was quite fresh, and was placed in a small depres- 

 sion in the coral-sand, a little above high-water mark ; both parents, 

 one of which we secured, were standing close to it. Mr. Wood- 

 Mason the year previously obtained an egg, precisely similar to the 

 one we got, and which must have belonged to this species, at 

 Corbyn's Cove, a few miles south of Port Blair. Mr. Mason's egg 

 was obtained on the 15th April. 



The eggs closely resemble those of E. recurvirostris, but are 

 handsomer and, I think, more elongated. They are large oval eggs, 

 usually I judge a good deal compressed towards one end. The shell 

 is tolerably fine and smooth, but has no gloss. The ground is a 

 creamy stone-colour or very pale cafe-au-laif, boldly blotched, 

 streaked, and spotted with blackish brown, paling in some places 

 to a yellowish or raw sienna-brown. Besides these primary 

 markings, a few small pale inky-purple subsurface-looking spots 

 and clouds are thinly scattered everywhere about the egg. The 

 blackish-brown markings are chiefly confined to the large end. The 

 eggs measure 2-6 by 1-75. The largest egg of E. recurvirostris that 

 I have ever obtained, and I have taken a vast number, measured 

 2-32 by 1-7 ; the average is 2-15 by 1-6. 



