The eggs are rather elongated ovals; some of them a good deal pointed towards one end, others again slightly pyriform. The shell is very delicate; the ground-colour white to creamy white; as a rule almost glossless, in some specimens slightly glossy. They are sparingly marked, usually chiefly at the large end, with spots, specks, small blotches, hair-lines, or hieroglyphic-like figures, which are typically almost black, but which in some eggs are blackish, or even reddish, or purplish brown. In no specimens that I have seen were the markings at all numerous, except just at the large end; and in some they consist solely of a few tiny specks, scattered about the crown of the egg. The eggs vary from 0·8 to 0·92 in length, and from 0·56 to 0·63 in breadth; but the average of a dozen was 0·86 by 0·6. 254. Irena puella (Lath.). _The Fairy Blue-bird_. Irena puella (_Lath._), _Jerd. B. Ind._ ii, p. 105; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no 469. Mr. Frank Bourdillon favoured me with an egg of the Fairy Blue-bird, which with other rare eggs he obtained on the Assamboo Hills. So little is known of this range that I quote his remarks upon this locality. "I must premise that the specimens were obtained along the Assamboo Range of hills, between the elevations of 1500 and 3000 feet above sea-level. This range of hills, running in a north-westerly and south-easterly direction from Cape Comorin to 8°33' north latitude, forms the boundary line between Travancore and the British Territory of Tinnevelly, the average height of the range being about 4000 feet, while some of the peaks are as high as 5500 feet. The general character of the hills is dense forest, broken here and there by grass ridges and crowned by precipitous rocks, above which lies an almost unexplored table-land, varying in width from a mile to 12 or 15 miles, at an elevation of almost 4000 feet." "The egg of the Fairy Blue-bird," he adds, "was taken slightly set on the 28th February, 1873, from a loose sparsely-built nest situated in a sapling about 12 feet from the ground. The nest was composed of dead twigs lined with leaves, and was about 4 inches broad and very slightly indented." As will be remembered, Dr. Jerdon states that "Mr. Ward obtained, what he was informed were, the nest and eggs; the nest was large, made of roots and fibres and lined with moss; and the eggs, two in number, were pale greenish, much spotted with dusky:" and I have no doubt that Mr. Ward's eggs were genuine.