STEEPSILAS INTEEPEES. 
905 
sometimes sparingly lined with a few grass-bents or roots mingled with, perhaps, one or two dead leaves. The 
eggs are four in number, and thoroughly Scolopacine in shape and markings, having nothing whatever in common 
with Sea-Plover’s eggs. They are pyriform, and for the most part compressed near the small end ; the colour 
is clayey buffi, olivaceous stone, or brownish stone, and the markings, which are in all thickly gathered round 
the l;ir"'c end,' are longitudinal, oblique-running, smeary blotches of umber-brown and olive-brown of one or two 
shades (in some eggs darker than in others) over clouds, smears, and spots of bluish grey ; the smaller half of 
the egg is boldly marked, but the blots are more circular and are intermingled with small specks. An egg in a 
line series of Mr. Seebohm’s, before me, is closely spotted or freckled throughout with several shades of brown, 
and in another the markings are brownish red. In size they vary from 1 to 1 7 inch in length b> from 
1-06 to P15 in width. The late celebrated oologist Mr. Hewitson, together with Mr. J. Hancock, were the 
first naturalists to bring the eggs of the Turnstone to England in the autumn of 1833. 
Genus NUMENIUS. 
Bill very long, slender, rounded, and curved as a sickle throughout; tip obtuse, projecting 
over the under mandible ; mandibles grooved, the upper for three quarters of its length, the lower 
for half; nostrils linear and near the commissure. Wings long, the tertials exceeding the 
primaries ; 1st quill the longest. Tail moderate, cuneate. Legs stout, moderately long. Tarsus 
covered with narrow transverse scutes below, and polygonal ones above ; toes webbed at the base 
and margined by a narrow membrane : hind toe moderate ; claws dilated. 
The exterior notches on the sternum are wide and deep, and the interior narrow and pomtec , 
the dividing “process” branching outwards. 
