134 CEATEKOPODIDJE.

the colour is pale bluish white, freckled with mfous. The nest
was placed on a branch of a plum-tree in the Botanical Garden,
Mussoorie."

Captain Cock says that he "found this species breeding at
Murree, at 6000 feet elevation.

" I took my first nest on the 5th June.

"It builds near the tops of the highest pines, and unless seen
building its nest with the glasses, it is impossible to find the nest
with the unaided eye.

"The nest is placed on the outer extremity of an upper bough
in a pine-tree; is constructed of moss lined with stalks of the
maiden-hair fern. Three eggs is the largest number I ever found.
The eggs are light greenish white, with rusty spots and blotches
principally at the larger end."

Prom Nynee Tal Colonel G. P. L. Marshall writes :—" This
species builds in irees and bushes. The only nest I examined per-
sonally was a very compact and thick cup-shaped structure of
moss, grass, and roots, lined with grass, and placed amongst the
outer twigs of a blackberry bush overhanging a cliff. It was
ready for the eggs on the 23rd May. It was found at Nynee Tal
on Agar Pata, about 7000 feet above the sea."

Prom Sikhim Mr. Gammie writes :—"I have only myself taken
two nests of this common species. I found both of them the same
day (the 21st May), in the Chinchona reserves, at an elevation of
about 5000 feet. Both nests were in the forest, built on the outer
branches of trees, at heights the one of 15, the other of 40 feet
from the ground. The nests were cup-shaped, and very neatly
made of moss, leaves and fibres, and lined with black fibres. One
measured externally 4-6 in diameter by 2*75 in height, and inter-
nally 2*4 in diameter and 1*7 in depth. One nest contained
two fresh, the other two hard-set eggs; so perhaps two is the
normal number, though the natives say that they lay three. As
might be expected from the bird's habit of feeding on the insects
on nioss-covered trees in moist forests, the nests were in forest by
the sides of streams."

The eggs are rather broad, slightly pyriforin ovals, often a good
deal pulled out as it were at the small end. The shell is fine, but
almost entirely devoid of gloss. The ground-colour is a pale green-
ish white or very pale bluish green. The markings are various
and complicated: first there are usually a few large, irregular,
moderately dark brownish-red spots and splashes; then there are
a very few, very dark, reddish-brown hair-lines, such as one finds
on Buntings' eggs; then there is a good deal of clouding and
smudging here and there of pale,; dingy purplish or brownish red
(all these markings are most nu;rnerous towards the large end) ;
and then besides these, and almost entirely confined to the large
end, are a few pale purple sp'ecks and spots. Sometimes the
markings are almost wholly confined to the thicker end of the egg.
Of course the eggs vary somewhat, and in some specimens the
characteristic Bunting-like hairlines are almost wholly wanting.