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 Mar., t917 GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATION IN SPHYR,,tPIUS THYROIDEUS 65 Placer County: Summit, 1. Nevada County: Independence Lake, 8. Siskiyou County: Mount Shasta, 1; Siskiyou Mountains, 1. Modoc County: Warner Mountains, 10. Oregon. Fort Klamath, 3 (winter). British Columbia. Midway, 3. Sphyrapicus thyroideus natalgae Colorado. Gold Hill, 2. Colorado Springs, 1. Pagosa, 2. Mill City, 1. Cebolla, 1. Elk Creek, 1. "Colorado", 4. New Mexico. Santa Fe, 1. Ancho, 2 (winter). Willis, I (winter). Arizona. Fort Whipple, I (winter). I-Iuachuca Mountains, 8 (winter). Mexico. Bolanos, Jalisco, I (winter). Berkeley, California, February 7, 1917. AN ABNORMAL EGG OF FULICA AMERICANA By ALEXANDER WETMORE WITH ONE PHOTO BNORMAL birds' eggs are of more or less common occurrence and have been of interest to the collector because of their oddity, but seldom has there been anything known concerning them that might explain their pe- culiarities. On May 29, 1916, while passing through an area known as the Old River Channel, in the delta of Bear River, Utah, a commotion in the aquatic growth at one side attracted attention. Going over, I found an adult .Coot caught under water and nearly drowned in long strands of the potato moss (Potamogeton pec- tinatus). On taking it up I found that it had only one foot, and this explained its inability to escape. The bird soon recovered and was tied and placed under some rushes in the bow of the boat along with other captives. This happened about nine o'clock in the morning. At noon the bird was given opportunity to drink, and about four in the afternoon it was placed in a pen where it had access to the river. The following morning I found to my surprise that the bird had laid an egg that was strikingly abnormal in color. Though I have examined many hundreds of Coots' eggs, I have never seen any at all resembling it. The ground color of this egg is between pale smoke gray and light mineral gray , with the larger end washed with avellaneous. Small spots of bone brown that stand out rather prominently, larger and more abundant about the large end, are scattered over the surface. About the larger end are many blurred con- fused spots of purplish gray. These markings are found over the rest of the sur- face and vary in places to light purplish gray. , The texture of the shell under a hand lens is seen to be similar to that of other Coots' eggs. This egg is abnormal, then, in having a greenish gray ground with a concen- tration of heavier markings about the larger end. It has absolutely no resem- blance to ordinary Coots' eggs, and no one who has examined it has recognized it. In general it resembles somewhat certain shore-birds' eggs, while it has a sug- Ridgway, Color Standards and Nomenclature, 1912.