MYIOPHONBIFS. 121

nest is always admirably adapted to surrounding conditions.
Safety is always sought either in inaccessibility or concealment.
Built on a rock in the midst of a roaring torrent, not the smallest
attempt at concealment is made; the nest lies open to the gaze of
every living thing, and the materials are not even so chosen as to
harmonize with the colour of the site. But if an easily accessible
sloping mossy bank, ever bejewelled with the spray of some little
cascade, be the spot selected, the nest is so worked into and coated
with moss as to be absolutely invisible if looked at from below, and
the place is usually so chosen that it cannot well be looked at, at
all closely, from above.

Captain Unwin sent me an unusually beautiful specimen of the
nest of this species, taken early in May in the Agrore Valley—a
massive and perfect cup, with a cavity of 5 inches in diameter and
3 inches deep ; the sides f ullv 2 inches thick; an almost solid mass
of fine roots (the finest towards the interior) externally inter-
mingled with moss, so as to form, to all appearance, an integral
portion of the mossy bank on which it was placed. In the bottom
of the nest were interwoven a number of dead leaves, and the
whole interior was thinly lined with very fine grass-roots and moss.
In this case the nest had been placed on a tiny natural platform
and was a complete cup ; but in another nest, also sent by Captain
Unwin, the cup, having been placed on the slope of a bank, wanted
(and this is the more common type) the inner one-third altogether,
the place of which was supplied by the bank-moss in situ. In this
case, although the cavity was only of the same size as that above
described, the outer face of the nest was fully 6 inches high, and
the wall of the nest between 3 and 3^ inches thick. The former
contained three much incubated, the latter four nearly fresh eggs.

A nest from Darjeeling which was taken on the 28th July, at an
elevation of about 3500 feet, from under a rock which partly over-
hung a stream, and contained two fresh eggs, was composed in
almost equal proportions of fine inoss-roots and dead leaves with
scarcely a trace of moss. In this case the nest was entirely con-
cealed from view, and no necessity, therefore, existed for coating
it externally with green moss to prevent its attracting attention.

Dr. Jerdon remarks :—" I have had its nest and eggs brought
me (at Darjeeling); the nest is a solid mass of rnoss, mixed with
earth and roots, of large size, and placed (as I was informed) under
an overhanging rock near a mountain-stream. The eggs were
three in number, aud dull green, thickly overlaid with reddish
specks."

" In Kumaon," writes Mr.R. Thompson, " they breed from May
to July, along all the smaller hill-streams, from 1500 up to about
4500 feet. In the cold season it descends quite to the plains—I
mean the Sub-Himalayan plains. The nest is generally more or
less circular, 5 or 6 inches in diameter, composed of moss and mud
clinging to the roots of small aquatic plants or of the moss, and
lined with fine roots and sometimes hair. A deep well-watered
glen is usually chosen, and the nest is placed in some cleft or