_Every_ egg is spotted, and most densely so towards the large end, with, as a rule, excessively minute red, reddish-purple, and pale purple specks, thus resembling, though smaller, more glossy, and far less densely speckled, the eggs of _Franklinia buchanani_. These are beyond all question the eggs of our Indian species, and the only type of them that I have yet observed; but the question remains--Is our Indian _Prinia cursitans_, Franklin, really identical with the European _C. schoenicola_, Bonaparte? [A]--and this can only be settled by careful comparison of an enormous series of good specimens of each bird. For my part I personally have little doubts as to the identity of the two. At the same time differences in the eggs may indicate difference of species. Thus of the closely allied _C. volitans_, Swinhoe, the latter gentleman informs us that "the eggs of our bird vary from three to five, are thin and fragile, and of a pale clear greenish blue"[B]. He called it _C. schoenicola_ when he wrote, but he really referred to the Formosan bird, which he has since separated. [Footnote A: The Indian and European birds are now generally allowed to be perfectly identical, notwithstanding the alleged difference in the colour of the eggs; and Mr. Hume is now, I think, of this opinion.--ED.] [Footnote B: But _C. volitans_, or the closely allied race which occurs in Pegu, assuredly lays spotted eggs. I found two nests of this bird, both with spotted eggs _vide_ (p. 236).--ED.] The eggs of course vary somewhat. Of one nest I wrote at the time I found it--"The eggs are a rather short oval, slightly pointed at one end, with a white ground, thickly sprinkled with numerous specks and tiny spots of pale brownish red. They measured ·58 by ·46." Of another I say--"The ground had a faint pearly tinge, and there was a well-marked, though, irregular and ill-defined, zone towards the large end, formed by the agglomeration there of multitudinous specks, which in places were almost confluent." Of another set--"The eggs were much glossier and had a china-white ground; but instead of a multitude of small specks over the whole surface, they had nearly the whole colouring-matter gathered together at the large end in a cap of bold, almost maroon-red spots, only a very few spots of the same colour being scattered over the rest of the egg." The eggs measure from ·53 to ·62 in length, and from ·43 to ·48 in breadth; but the average dimensions of a large number measured were ·59 by ·46. 382. Franklinia gracilis (Frankl.). _Franklin's Wren-Warbler_. Prinia gracilis, _Frankl. Jerd. B. Ind._ ii. p. 172; _Hume, Rough Draft N. & E._ no. 536. Prinia hodgsoni, _Bl., Jerd. t.c._ p. 173; _Hume, t.c._ no. 538.