336

LAJSIIDJG.

slightly broader oval than those of any of our true Shrikes, but
elongated and pointed examples occur. Their ground-colour is a
very pale greyish white,- thickly spotted all over the large end,
and thickly dotted elsewhere, with specks, spots, and tiny blotches
of pale yellowish brown and pale inky-purple. Compared with
the eggs of the other Pericrocoti, they are very dingily coloured.
The eggs are devoid of gloss. I am doubtful about these eggs.
In length they vary from 0-88 to 0-93 inch, and in breadth
from 0*72 to O75 inch ; but the average of five eggs is 0-9 by 0'72
inch.
494. Pericrocotus flammeus (Forst.).    The Orange Minivet.
Pericrocotus flammeus (Forst.), Jerd. £. Ind.  i, p.  420;   Hume,
Rough Draft N. $E. no. 272.
The Orange Minivet lays, I believe, in Jane and July on the
Nilghiris. I have never taken a nest myself, but I have received
several, with a few words in regard to them, from Miss
Coekburn.
The nests are comparatively massive little cups placed on, or
sometimes in, the forks of slender boughs. They are usually com-
posed of excessively fine twigs, the size of fir-needles, and they are
densely plastered over the whole exterior surface with greenish-
grey lichen, so closely and cleverly put together that the side of
the nest looks exactly like a piece of a lichen-covered branch.
There appears to be no lining, and the eggs are laid on the fine
little twigs which compose the body of the nest.
The nests are externally from 3 to 3^ inches in diameter, and
about lg inch deep, with an egg-cavity about 2 inches in diameter
and about | inch in depth. Some, however, when placed in a fork
are much deeper and narrower, say externally 2| inches in diame-
ter and the same height; the egg-cavity about 1| inch in diameter
and 1| inch in depth.
Miss Cockburn notes that one nest was found on the 24th of
June on a high tree, the nest being placed on a thin branch between
30 or 40 feet from the ground. It contained a single fresh egg,
which was broken in the fall of the branch, which had to be cut.
This egg, the remains of which were sent me, had a pale greenish
ground, and was pretty thickly streaked and spotted, most thickly
so at the large end, with pale yellowish brown and pale rather
dingy-purple, the latter colour predominating.
Another egg which she subsequently sent me, obtained on the
17th of July, is a "regular, moderately elongated oval, a little
pointed towards one end. The shell is fine, but glossless. The
ground is a delicate pale sea-green or greenish white, and it is
rather sparsely spotted and speckled with pale yellowish brown.
Only one or two purplish-grey specks are to be detected on this
egg; it measures 0-9 by 0-67.