100 CBATEEOPODIDJ3.

tained four fresh eggs. It was placed on the ground, and precisely
resembled that obtained near Darjeeling in July.

In some eggs the markings are rather bolder and coarser, and in
these there are generally some few pale lilac or inky-purple spots
intermingled where the markings are densest. Closely looked into,
many of the spots in some eggs are rather a pale yellowish brown.

The eggs are clearly all of the same type, and vary very little.

Pour eggs varied from 0-84 to 0-9 in length, and from 0-65 to
0-68 in breadth.

144. Pellorneum ruficeps, Swains. The Spotted Babbler.

Pellorneuui ruficeps, Swains., Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 27$ Hume, Rour/h
Draft N. $ E. no. 399.

Writing from Kotagherry Miss Cockburn says:—" Spotted
Babblers are exceedingly shy. They associate in small flocks
except during the breeding-season, when they go about in pairs.
I have only known them, to frequent small woods and brushwood,
a little higher than the elevation of the coffee-plantations.

" Three nests of these birds were found in the months of March
and April 1871. The first was placed on the ground, close against
a bush. The nest, consisting of dry leaves and grass, appeared to
be merely a canopy for the eggs, which, were almost on the bare
ground, having only a very few pieces of straw under them. The
eggs were three in number, and covered profusely with innumer-
able small dark spots, making it difficult to say what the ground-
colour really was. The nest was not easily found. The bird left
it so quietly as not to be heard, and dropped down the hill like a
ball. When the eggs were discovered the bird did not return to
them for fully three hours, after which she came very cautiously,
but only to meet her doom, poor thing, as she was then shot. The
second nest was built in the same way under a bush, and contained
three eggs, which were put into my egg-box lined with cotton, but
were hatched on the way home. The third nest was constructed
under a large stone and with the same materials, and contained
two young ones."

An egg of this species, received from Miss Oockburn, is a mode-
rately broad and very regular oval. The ground-colour is a slightly
freenish. white, and the whole surface of the egg is excessively
nely freckled and speckled with lilac or pale purplish grey and a
more or less rufous brown. The egg has a slight gloss.

It measures 0-88 by 0-65.

145. Pellorneum sufoochraceum, Swinh. The Burmese Spotted

Babbler.
Pellorneum subochraceum, Swinh., Hume, Cat. no. 399 sex.

The Burmese Spotted Babbler breeds pretty well over the whole
of Pegu and Tenasserim. Mr. Gates writes :"—" On the 3rd May