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Show 1882.] BIRDS' E G G S F R O M M A D A G A S C A R . 355 It may be described as of a pale stone-colour, or, to be more accurate, of the colour described and figured by Werner in his ' Nomenclature of Colours ' as cream-yellow, spotted or speckled chiefly at the larger end with yellowish-brown and paler brocoli-brown (Werner). It measures 1*4 inch by 1*1 at its greatest diameter. Only one nest was found, containing two eggs. The native name for this bird according to Mr. Deans Cowan is Hitsikitsidrano. 2. -ZEGIALITIS GEOFFROYI, Wagler. In 'The Ibis' for 1870 I gave as complete a life-history of this species as the materials then available enabled me to prepare, with a figure of the bird in its nuptial plumage. Reference to this account will show that the species is widely distributed and has frequently come under the observation of naturalists at the periods of its migration, or in its winter-quarters; but I was obliged to confess m y inability to describe the egg (torn. cit. p. 383). Jerdon, writing of its habits in India, thought it " retired northwards to breed ;" and Dr. Leith Adams believed he had found it breeding on the banks of the Chimouraree Lake in Ladakh (P.Z.S. 1859, p. 188), but the description of the bird given by him in his ' Wanderings of a Naturalist in India' (p. 283) shows that it was the closely allied, but smaller, AEgialitis mongolica that he met with. Ail. geoffroyi, according to Swinhoe, is abundant on the sandy shores of Formosa; and from the fact of the young being found in the island, he conjectured that it breeds there. There can be little doubt that it does so; for several eggs which he took there, and supposed to be those of the Eastern Golden Plover, Charadriusfulvus, are evidently too small for that species, and can only belong to AH. geoffroyi. These eggs are now in the collection of Mr. H. Seebohm, and resemble those Do ' now exhibited from Madagascar. As its smaller congener AH. mongolicus does not occur in Madagascar, there is no ground for supposing that the eggs now exhibited can belong to that species ; while the eggs of such other Sand-Plovers as are known to occur in the island are so much smaller in size, and so different in markings, that they cannot for a moment be confounded. JE. geoffroyi is common enough in Madagascar, frequenting saudy shores and going up the rivers for some distance inland to breed. The egg is of a cream-yellow, blotched chiefly at the larger end with pitch-black. It measures 1*4 inch by 1 inch. The native name for this bird, and applied to all the Sand-Plovers which are found there, is Vikiviki. 3. GALLINAGO MACRODACTYLA, Bonaparte. G. bernieri, Pucheran. This Snipe, a very rare one in collections, is characterized by the unusually long toes, and by the extraordinary length of bill which distinguishes it from all its congeners. Hardly any thing has been published concerning it beyond the |