EETTHEA. 391 



In shape the eggs are normally moderately broad, nearly perfect 

 OTals, slightly compressed towards one end, but somewhat more 

 pointed or elongated examples occur. The ground is a pale stone- 

 colour, commonly tinted with pink when fresh. Some eggs are a 

 very pale pinkish-drab colour; others, almost pale whity brown. 

 They are more or less thickly sprinkled with spots, specks, and 

 moderate-sized blotches of deep red, reddish brown, and purple, as 

 the case may be. The larger markings are not unfrequently 

 surrounded by a reddish halo, and the general appearance of the egg 

 i.s very commonly streaky, owing to the markings being often more 

 or less grouped along irregular lines running lengthways with 

 the egg. 



In length the eggs vary from 1-51 to 1-79, and in breadth from 

 1'16 to l-2o ; but the average of twenty eggs is 1'62 by 1'21 *. 



Erythra phoenicura (Penn.). The White-breasted Water-hen. 



Gallinula phoenicura (Penn.), Jerd. B, Ind. ii, p. 720 ; Hume, Rotwli 

 Draft N. ^ E. no. 907. 



The White-breasted Water-hen breeds throughout India and 

 Burma, in the less arid portions of the Empire, but it is very rare, 

 a mere straggler in fact, in the drier portions of the North- West 

 Provinces, the Punjab, Eajpootana, and Sind. It is common in 

 the Andamans and Nicobars, and we got it in Sumatra. I never 

 yet obtained the nest, but when at Bareilly I ascertained that it 

 bred in August, laying its eggs in the midst of the thick bamboo- 

 clumps that there encircle so many groves and ponds. 



Mr. Blewitt obtained a nest in Saugor on the 11th August, and 

 two towards the end of the same month near Eaipore. 



Ml". Blewitt says:— "The White-breasted Water-hen is to be 

 found in numbers in the many tanks and the dense thickets and 

 hedge-rows bordering them, in the districts of Eaipore and 

 Surabulpore. It breeds from, I believe, the middle of July to 

 September. 



" In August 1872, in a thicket surrounding a large village tank, 

 some fifty miles west of Eaipore, a nest was found with five eggs. 

 It was some five feet from the ground, ingeniously made, and con- 

 cealed in the branches of a thick- growing bush. The nest was a 

 roughly-constructed mass of twigs, lined with a good layer of dead 

 leaves. 



" In July last year, in the same locality, another nest, similarly 

 situated and constructed, was secured, also containing five eggs. 



" Again in August, in the high weeds fringing a swamp, a 

 floating nest containing five eggs was taken. This nest, about 16 

 inches in diameter and 9 inches in depth, was exclusively composed 



* I omit from this edition the Gallinula burnesi of Blyth, a bird which no 

 one has again met with since Blyth described it. 



