The eggs of this species are very regular, slightly elongated ovals, scarcely compressed or pointed towards the small end at all.  The shell is fragile, and is either entirely glossless or has only a trace of gloss.  The ground-colour is white, with at times a faint pinkish tinge, and the markings consist of spooks, spots, and splashes (always most numerous at the large end, where they usually form a more or less conspicuous though irregular cap) of dull or bright brick-red, more or less intermingled in most specimens with dull reddish lilac.  The arrangement and size of the markings are very variable.  In some eggs they are all mere specks, forming a small speckly cap at the large end, and elsewhere very thinly scattered about the surface; in others many of the spots are (for the size of the egg) large, the majority are well-marked spots and not mere specks, and the whole surface of the egg is pretty thickly studded with them, while the broad end exhibits a large blotched and mottled cap.  The majority of the eggs are intermediate between these two extremes.

In length the eggs vary from 0.61 to 0.72 and in breadth from. 0.5 to 0.54, but the average of numerous specimens is 0.67 by 0.52.[A]

[Footnote A:  SITTA TEPHRONOTA, Sharpe. The Eastern Rock-Nuthatch

Sitta neumayeri, Mich., Hume, cat. no. 248 quint.

The Eastern Rock-Nuthatch is abundant in Baluchistan, and without doubt breeds there.  The following note by Lieut.  H.E.  Barnes will therefore be interesting.  He writes from Afghanistan:—­“This Nuthatch is very common on the hills.  It appears to choose very different localities to build in.  In some instances a hole in the face of a rock is selected, and this it lines with agglutinated mud and resin, continuing the lining-case until it, projects in the shape of a cone to fully 8 inches.  It seems fond of decorating its little palace with feathers to a distance of 2 or even 3 feet, and it is thus a conspicuous object; but most nests are found in holes in trees, and even here feathers are stuck into crevices all around.  They are usually well lined with camel-hair.

“They breed in March and April.  The eggs are usually four in number (I have sometimes found five), oval in shape, more or less glossy white, and more or less densely or sparsely (generally most densely towards the large end) spotted and blotched with varying shades of chestnut to reddish brown, more or less intermingled with pale purple and occasionally purplish grey.  Some eggs are very richly marked.  Some are almost pure white.  They average 0.87 by 0.57.”