PHYLLOSCOPUS.	261
five, pure white, profusely spotted with red and a few spots of
purple grey. Size, 0-53 by 0-43."
Later still he added in ' The This :'—" Captain Cock writes from
Sonamerg: 'The second day I found niy first nest with eggs. It
was the nest of P. proregulus. I shot the old bird. Three eggs.
These nests are often placed on a bough high up in a pine-tree, and
are domed or roofed, made of moss and lined with feathers. I
took another one to day with five eggs, and shot the bird just as
it was entering its nest. This was on a bough of a pine, but low
down. I know of two more nests of P. proregulus, all on pine-
trees, from which I hope to take eggs.'
" After describing the nest of P. Jiumii, and saying that it was
lined with the hair of the musk-deer, he adds: ' In this the
nest differs from that of P. proreyulus, which lines its nest with
feathers and bits of thin birch-bark; and the nest of P.proregulus
is only partly domed.'
"I measured four eggs of P. proregulus which Captain Cock
kindly gave me, and the dimensions are as follows: -55 by -44, -53
by -43, *53 by '43, and -54 by -43. They are pure white, richly
marked with dark brownish red. particularly at the larger end,
forming there a fine zone on most of the eggs. Intermingled with
these spots, and especially on the zone, are some spots and blotches
of deep purple-grey. The egg is very handsome, and reminds one
strongly of those of Parus cristatus on a smaller scale. The dates
when the eggs were taken are 30th May and 2nd June, and the
place Sonamerg, which is four marches up the valley of the Sindh
Eiver."
Captain Cock himself tells me that he " took several nests of this
bird at Sonamerg in Cashmere in pine-forests. It breeds in May
and June, making a partially domed nest, which is sometimes
placed low down on the bough of a pine-tree, sometimes on a small
sapling pine where the junction of the bough with the stem takes
place, and at other times high up on the outer end of a bough. It
lays five eggs, like those of P. humii only smaller. The nests I
found were all lined with feathers and thin birch-bark strips. I
never found a hair-lining in any of this bird's nests. The outer
portions of the nest consisted of moss and lichen, arranged so as
to harmonize with the bough on which it was placed. The nests
are compact little structures."
Mr. Brooks, writing of the valley of the Bhagirati river, says :—
^u Common in the alpine parts of the valley. It breeds about Derail,
Bairamghati, and G-angaotri, in the large moss-grown deodars."
The eggs of this species closely resemble those of P. humii, but
are smaller, and, to judge from a few specimens taken by Captain
Cock that I have seen, they are somewhat shorter and broader.
Texture smooth, without any perceptible gloss. Ground-colour
pure white, spotted freely and principally towards the larger end
with red: brick-dust red would perhaps scarcely be a correct term.
The colour would be obtained by mixing a little brown and a good
deal of purple with vermilion, or by mixing Indian red with a