PELLOESTEUM. 101

I found a nest on the ground near Pegu. A good many bamboo-
leaves had fallen and the nest was imbedded in these. It was
formed entirely of these leaves loosely put together, the interior
only being sparingly lined with fine grass. The structure in situ
was tolerably firm, but it would not stand removal. In height it
was about 7 inches, and in breadth about 5, the longer axis being
vertical. Shape cylindrical with rounded top. Entrance 2| inches
by If, placed about the centre. The interior of the nest was a
rough sphere of 4 inches diameter.

" There were three eggs, slightly incubated. The ground-colour
is pure white, and the whole surface is minutely and thickly
speckled with reddish-brown and greyish-purple spots, more closely
placed at the thick end, where they coalesce in places and form
bold patches.

" On the 29th June, I found another nest of similar construc-
tion, placed on the ground in thick forest, at the root of a shrub."

Mr. "W. Davison in 1875 gave me the following note :—" On the
morning of the 25th March I took at Bankasoon a nest of this
species in thick forest; it was placed on the ground and was com-
posed externally of dead leaves, with a scanty lining of fine roots
and fibres. It measured externally about 5 inches high by about
4 wide. The' egg-cavity was hardly 3 inches in diameter. The
nest was only partially domed, and was very loosely and carelessly
put together.

"The nest contained three eggs,but these were so far incubated
that it was impossible to blow two of them."

The single egg of this species obtained by Mr. Davison is in
shape a moderately broad oval, a little pointed towards the small
end; the shell is fine, but has little gloss. The ground-colour, so
far as this is visible through the thickly-set markings, is white,
and it is very finely but densely stippled and freckled (most densely
at the large end, where the markings are not unfrequently con-
fluent or nearly so) with dull to bright reddish brown ; here and
there, especially about the large end, more or less faint grey or red
specks, spots, or tiny clouds may be traced underlying as it were
the brown or purplish markings.

The egg sent me from Pegu by Mr. Oates is of precisely the
same size and type, but the markings are much less dense and are
brighter coloured, The ground-colour is white, and the egg is
pretty thickly speckled with a reddish-chocolate brown. Here and
there a moderately large irregularly-shaped spot is intermingled
with the finer specklings. The markings are rather most dense
at the large end, where there is a tendency to form a zone, and
here a number of pale purplish-grey streaks and specks are also
intermingled.

Major 0. T. Eingham says:—" Early on the morning of the 7th
April, moving camp from the sources of the Thoungyeen, on the
side of a hill at the foot of a bamboo-bush not two feet from the
road, I flushed and shot a female of the above species off her nest;
a little loosely-put-together round ball of dry bamboo-leaves, tin-