388 BAILIDiE. 



and sometimes a comparatively slight one of fine rush and grass on 

 the floating leaves of lotus and singhara {Trajta bispinosa). 



I have never found any but fresh eggs, and never more than 

 five eggs in any nest ; but the boatmen declare that they lay as 

 many as the Coots and Water-hens, viz., eight to ten or even 

 more. Pew of my correspondents seem to have taken theeggs. 

 My friend the late Mr. Valentine Irwin, for some time officiating 

 Collector of Tipperah, sent me four eggs, and wrote to me as 

 follows : — 



" I took two nests of this species near Commillah, in Tipperah, 

 in August : the one contained two fresh, and the other two half- 

 hatched eggs. The nests were composed of very fine grass, laid 

 on floating leaves of water-plants, in a large jheel. There was 

 about 4 feet of water where I found the nests." 



Colonel W. V. Legge remarks of the Water-cock :— " It breeds 

 in the south of Ceylon in July and August." 



Mr. Gates, writing from Pegu, says : — 



" Jidy 17th. One nest with three eggs. 



" AiK/ust 7th. One nest with three eggs, and a fourth was 

 taken from the female bird. Makes its nest in rank grass near 

 paddy-fields." 



The eggs of this species vary somewhat in size and in intensity 

 of marking, but all that I have seen have been very beautiful. In 

 shape they are moderately elongated ovals, in some cases almost 

 perfectly symmetrical at both ends, in others slightly compressed 

 or pointed towards one end. In texture they are fine and com- 

 pact, but they are less glossy than most eggs of this family. The 

 ground-colour is a pale yellowish or fawny stone-colour, sometimes 

 with a faint greenish tinge, occasionally almost white, and they 

 are commonly thickly blotched and streaked with brownish red or 

 in some only slightly reddish brown and purple, or, again, in some 

 deep red. The markings are generally most numerous towards 

 the larger end, where they form in many cases a mottled or clouded 

 cap. In some specimens both sets of colours, the brownish-red 

 and purple, are slightly dingy; in others they are excessively 

 bright and beautiful. In some the markings are very bold and 

 comparatively widely separated ; in others the whole surface of the 

 egg is closely mottled and freckled all over, so as to leave but 

 little of the ground-colour visible. At times many of the markings 

 are encircled by a broad halo or nimbus of the same colour, but 

 much lighter in shade. In a common type of the egg all the 

 markings are streaky and the whole egg is densely streaked in a 

 mottled and clouded manner with moderately pale brownish red, 

 in which streakings are intermingled patches of deeper and more 

 purplish red. 



In length they vary from 1'58 to 1-8, and in breadth from 1'12 

 to 1'3 ; but the average of a dozen eggs is 1-7 by V27. 



