150 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XV 
the butt ; but in some specimens they are much finer and irregular, at the same 
time sparsely sprinkled over the egg (no. 27). 
There are at hand two sets of eggs of four eggs each of the Whimbrel, and 
the markings in some of them are very heavy and large as compared with some 
of the others. Occasionally, we find at the butt of one o'f these eggs, about a 
third of the distance from the end, a scraggly line of black, as though it had been 
done with a pen. This point is interesting, as some odlogists have claimed that 
this marking is of an adventitious nature. It is also found in eggs of N. anieri- 
camis, where a smaller mass of such scratchings may occur. Ridgway gives the 
size of the Whimbrel's egg as 2.39 by 1.66, and that is almost exactly the size of 
one in this collection. 
Twenty-eight eggs of the Lapwing {Vaiiclliis vancUns), or seven sets of four 
to the set, probably giA^e a fair average for size, form and color of the eggs of 
this interesting plover, and this is the number of them before me at the present 
writing (fig. 46, nos. 48-50). It is a very handsome egg that VancUns lays, rang- 
ing in ground color from a very deep clay-buff, to a rich buffy olive, finely or 
very coarsely marked all over with blotches or spots of all possible sizes and 
shapes of blackish-brown. In size they average 1.75 by 1.30. 
A rival of that of the Lapwing is the egg of the Golden Plover ( Charadrius 
d. dominicus ) . Judging from the set of four at hand, it is always larger, more 
elongate, and much lighter in ground color. The blotches, dots, and specks dis- 
tributed all over the surface of any one of them are of a blackish-brown, almost 
black. Sometimes the bigger markings are congregated at the butt, but there is 
considerable variation in this matter. Average size 2.07 by 1.40 (Ridgway). 
Even handsomer than those of either the Lapwing or the Golden Plover are 
the eggs of the Kilkleer Plover (Oxyechits vocifcrns) (fig. 45, nos. 39-41), for 
they are of the palest possible clay color, and the markings, of a character as 
shown in the figures, are black, causing them to be most striking oological sub- 
jects. Size, 1.50 X I. TO. 
To represent the eggs of the species composing the genus Aegialitis, those 
of the Snowy Plover (A. nivosa) have been chosen (fig. 45, no. 44), and they 
are very modest-looking little affairs, the collection containing three sets of three 
eggs to the set, all of which I have duly compared. Whether this is the usual 
clutch I am, at this writing, unable to state, and Ridgway does not commit him- 
self on this point in his “Manual, ’ while Cones says not a word about the eggs 
of this species of plover in his “Key” (5th ed. pp. 780, 781). They exhibit but 
very little A^ariation in any particular, all being of a very pale, dull, buff-clay col- 
or, finely spotted, nearly all over, though not thickly, with blackish-brown spot.s 
and the finest kind of scraggly hair-lines. In some, the dots are coarser, and no 
hair-lines appear on the specimens, the markings being chiefly congregated at the 
big end, though not altogether so. No. 44 presents one of these eggs, nearly 
natural size. 
The Wilson Plover (Ochfhodroinus wilsojiius) (fig. 45, no. 43) also lays a 
very pale-colored, buffy tinted egg, more elongate than in the last species, but 
very similarly marked with blackish-brown irregular spots as shoAvn in the fig- 
ure. These are pretty evenly distributed all over the egg, and never of very large 
size. 
The eggs, then, shown in nos. 40-44 are the general style and pattern of the 
smaller species of plovers ; but we note a decided difference when we come to ex- 
amine those of the Mountain Plover (Podasocys montanns) (fig. 45, no. 42). 
This egg is rounder, or rather less pyriform, than is usually the case among these 
