128	CRATEROPODIDJ3.
ground is a pale delicate clay-brown, and the markings consist only
of a zone about 0-2 wide round the large end of densely set dull
brownish-red specks, and a few similar specks inside the zone only.
In the other, the ground has a light greenish tinge, the zone is less
marked and merges in a dull brownish-red mottled cap, and a
faint marbling, of a paler shade of the cap, is scattered here and
there over the whole surface of the egg. They measure 1 by 0*65
and 0-98 by 0-65.
The egg taken by Mr. Davison is an elongated, slightly pyri-
form oval. The shell is moderately fine, but with only a very slight
gloss. The ground-colour is a pale slightly greyish green, and the
whole egg is thickly (most thickly so about the large end, where
the markings are almost perfectly confluent) mottled and streaked
with pale brownish red. It measures 0*98 by 0*67.
193. Brachypteryx aHuveutris (Pairbank).    The White-bellied
Short-wing.
Callene albiventris, Fairl., Hume, Rough Draft N. fy E. no. 339 bis.
The E-ev. S. B. Pairbank, to whom I have, owed much useful
information and many valuable specimens, kindly sent me the sub-
joined account of the nidification of the White-bellied Short-wing
in the Pulney Hills at an elevation of about 6500 feet:—
" In April, I found a nest in a hole in the side of the trunk of a
large tree some 2 feet from the ground. The hole was just large
enough for the nest, and was lined with fine roots. I surprised
the bird on her nest several times. There were two eggs in the
nest when I first found it that were * hard-set.5 A month after-
wards she laid two more in the same place, and I took them in
good condition. One egg measures 0-9 by'0-68 inch, and another
0-94 by 0-68 inch. The ground-colour is grey, with a tinge of
green, and it is thickly covered with small spots of bistre."
Mr. Blanford, who saw the eggs, which I never did, describes
them (and by analogy, I should infer more correctly) as "of an
olive-brown colour, darker at the larger end, measuring 0*93 by
0-63 inch."
An egg of this species sent me by Dr. Pairbank, measuring
0-93 by 0'66, is a somewhat elongated oval, slightly pointed towards
the small end. The shell is fine and fairly glossy; the ground-
colour, so far as this is discernible, is greyish green, but it is so
thickly clouded and mottled all over with a warm brown, that but
little of the ground-colour is any where-traceable, and the general
result when the egg is looked at from a short distance is that of a
nearly uniform olive-brown.
Captain Horace Terry also found thenest of this bird on the Pulney
Hills. He says :—" I met with it a few times in the big shola at
Kodikanal, and got two nests, each with two fresh eggs ; the first
on the 7th June in a hole in a tree between 4 and 5 feet from the
ground, a deep cup of green moss; the other, in a hole in the bank
of a path running through the shpla was of green moss and a few