CORYTTS. O

or other stiff hair, grass, grass-roots, cocoanut-fibre, &c. In the
hills they use any animal's hair or fur, if the latter is pretty stiff.
They do not, according to my experience, affect luxuries in the way
of soft down; it is always something moderately stiff, of the coir
or horsehair type; nothing soft and fluffy. Coarse human hair,
such as some of our native fellow-subjects can boast of, is often
taken, when it can be got, in lieu of horsehair.

They lay four or five eggs. I have quite as often found the
latter as the former number. I have never myself seen six eggs in
one nest, but I have heard, on good authority, of six eggs being found.

Captain Tin win writes: "I found a nest of the Bow-billed
Corby in the Agrore Valley, containing four eggs, on the 30th
April. It was placed in a Cheer tree about 40 feet from the
ground, and was made of sticks and lined with dry grass and
hair/7

Mr. W. Theobald makes the following remarks on the breeding
of this bird in the Valley of Cashmere:—

" Lays in the third'week of April. Eggs four in number, ovato-
pyriform, measuring from 1/6 to 1-7 in length and from 1*2 to
1-25 in breadth. Colour green spotted with brown; valley
generally. Nest placed in Chinar and difficult trees."

Captain Hutton tells us that the Corby " occurs at Mussoorie
throughout the year, and is very destructive to young fowls and
pigeons; it breeds in May and June, and selects a tall tree, near a
house or village, on which to build its nest, which is composed
externally of dried sticks and twigs, and lined with grass and hair,
which latter material it will pick from the backs of horses and
cows, or from skins of animals laid out to dry. I have had skins
of the Sarrow (Noemorhcedus tliar) nearly destroyed by their de-
predations. The eggs are three or four in number.7'

Erorn the plains I have very few notes. I transcribe a few of
my own.

" On the llth March, near Oreyah, I found a nest of a Corby—
a good large stick nest, built with tamarind twigs, and placed fully
40 feet from the ground in the fork of a mango-tree standing by
itself. The nest measured quite 18 inches in diameter and five in
thickness. It was a nearly flat platform with a central depression
8 inches in diameter, and not more than 2 deep, but there was a
solid pad of horsehair more than an inch thick below this. I took
the mass out; it must have weighed half a pound. Four eggs
much incubated.

" Etaivah, 14th March.—Another nest at the top of one of the huge
tamarind-trees 'behind the Asthul: could not get up to it. A boy
brought the nest down; it was not above a foot across, and perhaps
3 inches deep; cavity about 6 inches in diameter, thickly lined
with grass-roots, inside which again was a coating of horsehair
perhaps a rupee in thickness; nest swarming with vermin. Eggs
five, quite fresh; four eggs normal; one quite round, a pure pale
slightly greenish blue, with only a few very minute spots and
specks of brown having a tendency to form a feeble zone round